T H E 

DOCTRINE OF ORIGINAL SIN, 

AS 

* 

RECEIVED AND TAUGHT 



THE CHURCHES OF THE REFORMATION 

STATED AND DEFENDED, 

And the Error of Dr. Hodge in Claiming that this Doctrine 
Recognizes the Gratuitous Imputation of Sin, Pointed 
Out and Refuted. 




ROBERT Wl LAND IS, 

Late Professor tn the Theological Seminary of Danville, Kentucky. 

I SEP 29 1884. J '• 

RICHMOND, VA.: 
Whittet & Shepperson, 1001 Main Street, Richmond, Va. 

1884. 



Copyright 
by 

Central University, Ky. ; L. H. Blanton, D. D., Chancellor. 

1884. 



The Library 
of Congress 



WASHINGTON 



Printed by 
Whittet & Shepperson, 
Richmond, Va. 



Bound by 
Randolph & English, 
Richmond, Va. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

"Biographical Notice op the Author, . . . . * vii 

Preface, ......... xiii 

ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 
§ 1. Introductory and Explanatory, ..... 1 

PAET I. 



Wherein the Question Under Discussion is Carefully Examined and 
the True Issue Stated and Illustrated. 



§ 


2. 


The Importance of the Issue, ..... 


9 


§ 


3. 


The State of the Question, ..... 


11 




4. 


Dr. Hodge's Ratiocination on the Issue, 


23 


§ 


5. 


Dr. Hodge's Position in Relation to the Issue, 


34 


■§ 


6. 


Antecedent or Immediate Imputation is Never in the Reformed 
Theology Confounded with Gratuitous Imputation, 


40 


§ 


7. 


The Calvinistic System and Mediate Imputation, 


51 


§ 


8. 


Dr. Hodge and Participation, . . . . 


55 



PAET II. 

Wherein is Presented and Illustrated the Manner in which the Doc- 
trine Concerning Original Sin and Imputation has always been Ex- 
hibited by the Representative DrviNEs of the Church. 



§ 9. The Order of Topics in Stating the Doctrine, . . 69 
The Citations, . . • . . . .78 

§ 10. The Church Doctrine on the Relation which the Punitive Justice 

of God Sustains to His Creatures, .... 89 

The Citations, ....... 90 

§ 11. Condition of the Argument. — Augustine, . . . 100 
§ 12. General References to the Subject by the Divines of the Reforma- 
tion. Citations, . . ... . . . 106 

§ 13. Formal and Expository Statements, .... Ill 

A. The Calvinistic Divines. Citations, . . . m 

B. The Lutheran Divines. Citations, . . . 142 
Concluding Remarks, ...... 154 

.§ 14. Adam's Personal Sin and the First Sin, . . . 156 

Citations, . . • . . . . . 160 



iv 



CONTENTS. 



PAET III. 

In which are Considered the Grounds Alleged by Dr. Hodge in De- 
fence of His Theory, together with the Results which must Logi- 
cally Accrue from its Reception. 

§ 15. Remarks on the General Subject, .... 166 

§ 16. The Relation which Romans v. 12-21 sustains to the Whole 
Subject, Considered ; together with the Early Church Con- 
ception of the Covenant, . . . . .179 

§ 17. The Position and Point of the Apostle's Argument (in Romans 
v. 12-21) as Understood and Affirmed by the Divines of the 

Reformation, ...... 189 

Analyses, ... . . . . . 197 

Remarks on the Subject, ..... 206 

§ 18. Dr. Hodge's Explanation of the Passage, . . . 212 

§ 19. The Socinian Exegesis of Romans v. 12-21, . . . 220 

Remarks, ....... 227 

§ 20. Refutation of the Socinian Exegesis by the Calvinistic Divines, 229 
§ 21. The Exegesis of Romans v. 12-21 as Reproduced and Applied 

by the Remonstrants and Semi-Pelagians, . . 240 

Remarks, . . . . . . . 251 

§ 22. The Exegesis as Employed and Applied by Dr. Hodge Reverses 

the Connection Between Regeneration and Justification, 253 

§ 23. The Exegesis Involves the Doctrine of Eternal Justification, . 258 

§ 24. Other Results as Affecting still further the Analogy of Faith, 269 
§ 25. The Exegesis of Romans v. 12-19 by Dr. Hodge is Irreconcil- 
able with the Principles of True Hermeneutics, and with the 

usus loquendi of the Scriptures, . . . . 281 

Hermeneutics, ...... 281 

The Exposition of the Passage, .... 286 

Results of the Investigation, .... 306 

§ 26. The Relation which Reason Sustains to the Issue in Question, 309 
Supplement to § 26. " Unthinkable" Propositions, . 325 
§ 27. The Issue in Question does not Demand and neither will Admit 
of Solution on the Principles of any of our Recognized Phil- 
osophies, ....... 332 

§ 28. The Basis for the Imputation of Adam's First Sin as Affirmed by 

this Theory, Considered. The Position of Turrettin, . 848 
Turrettin, . . . . . . .359 

§29. The Representative Principle as Asserted by Div Hodge, . 362 

1. He Excludes Eve Logically and Ethically in Relation to 

the Transmission of Original Sin, . . . 363 

2. His Representative Principle as Affirmed and Applied 

Logically Attributes the Origin of Sin in Adam's Pos- 
terity to the Divine Efficiency, . . , , 366 

3. His Persistent Endeavor to Identify His Principle of Repre- 

sentation with the Recognized Theology of the Church, 368 



CONTENTS. 



V 



§ 30. The Theory of Dr. Hodge and the Church Dogmatic, . . 377 

§ 31. The Theory and its Ethical Relations, ... 407 

I. It Furnishes a Basis on which to Maintain : 

1. That a Portion of the Eace was Created to be Damned, 410 

2. And to Justify the Theory of Restorationism, . 411 

3. That we should be willing to be Damned for the Glory 

of God, 413 

4. That God has Introduced Sin into the Universe as a 

Means for Accomplishing the Greatest Good, . 414 

II. It Subverts by Logical Necessity the Christian Conception 
of God's Love Toward His Creatures, and of His Desire to 

be Loved by Them, . . . . . . . 416 

III. It Likewise Enervates and Tends to Abolish the True 
Christian Conception as to the Ground or Reason for Divine 
"Worship, ....... 421 

IV. It also Logically Subverts in Like Manner the "Whole 
Christian Conception of the Divine Justice and Holiness, . 423 

V. It is Destructive, moreover, of Human Accountability, 426 
"VT. It Likewise Abolishes Every Practicable Basis for the Ex- 
ercise of Repentance Towards God, .... 428 

VII. It Constitutes Redemption a "Work of Justice Instead of 
Grace and Mefcy, ...... 433 

VIII. It Constitutes God the Efficient Author of Sin as Ex- 
isting in the Posterity of Adam, . . . . 436 

Which is Apparent from the Ground it Assumes Respecting : 

1. Human Personality, . . . . ; 437 

2. The Original Sentence on our First Parents, . . 444 

3. The Transmission (or Traduction) of Sin. . . 447 

4. The Demands of Justice, .... 451 

5. The Origin of Sin in the Posterity of Adam, . 457 
§ 32. The Conclusion of the Work, . . . . .467 

APPENDIX. 

Note A. — {Referred to on page 4.) 

In which are Considered Dr. Buchanan's Misapprehension in regard 
to "Legal Fiction," his Disagreement with Dr. Hodge on Gratuit- 
ous Imputation, and his own Errors touching the Active Obedi- 
ence of Christ, ... . . . . . 477 

Note B. 

{Referred to in § 8, page 64, and repeatedly in other parts of the Work.) 

Max Created in the Image and According to the Likeness oe the 

Triune God, . . . . . . .491 

I. The Plurals rs and ora (in Genesis i. 26, 27) are not here Plurals 

o£ Intensity, . . . . . . 492 

The Views of the Early Church, . . . . .494 



vi 



CONTENTS. 



II. Whom did God address in these words: "Let us make Man in 

our Image, after our Likeness?" etc., . . . 497 

III. The True Construction of the Phrase "Image and Likeness," . 509 

IV. What is the Image and Likeness ? 513 

Remarks on the foregoing, . 519 

Summary and Result, ...... 522 

Note C. 

Principal Cunningham and his Acceptance of Dr. Hodge's Theory, . 537 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



EOBEET WHAETOX LANDIS was bom in the city of 
Philadelphia January 8, 1809. His father, Samuel Calvin 
Landis, was a descendant of the old Huguenot family of Calvin. 
His maternal grandfather wa5 a German. When seventeen vears 
of age, he made a profession of faith in Christ by uniting with 
the Baptist church, of which his parents were members, and at 
once consecrated himself to the gospel ministry. Taking a school 
at Stillwater, New Jersey, when nineteen years old, that he might 
obtain means for carrying on his education, he engaged in earnest 
and active Christian labors ; and assisted by a young friend of like 
spirit, they were so successful that in two years they left a church 
where previously there was not a professing Christian. About 
this time he transferred his membership to the Presbyterian 
church. 

In pursuing his education he had few advantages. Fifteen 
months in an academy, and three months with a private teacher, 
embraced his whole course of instruction. His great attainments 
as a scholar were made by private study, and, for the most part, 
while he was engaged in active duties, — teaching, preaching, 
lecturing, or writing for the press. 

In December, 1831, he was licensed as a probationer, and one 
year later was ordained to the full work of the gospel ministry. 
His first pastorate was with two small churches, Gilead and Pock- 
land, in the State of Pennsylvania. In 1835 he took charge of 
the churches of Providence and Norriston; in 1839 he went to 
Allentown; in 1812 to Bethlehem, New Jersey; in 1849 to Hills- 
dale, New York; in 1852 to Greenville, in the same State; in 
1853 to Paterson, New Jersey; in 1856 to Ionia, Michigan; and 
in 1860 to Somerset, Kentucky. At the beginning of the war he 



viii 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



went to Saint Louis, and for six months supplied the pulpit of the 
Second Presbyterian Church, while their pastor, Dr. Brookes, was 
in Europe; after which he entered the United States army as 
chaplain. In 1865 he resigned his commission to prepare himself 
for the discharge of the duties of the theological chair in the Dan- 
ville Seminary, to which the General Assembly had appointed 
him for the ensuing term, when Dr. Breckinridge would be absent. 
At the close of the term he went East, and in January, 1867, be- 
gan his labors at Wilmington, Delaware ; but having been elected 
Professor of Theology at Danville, to succeed Dr. Breckinridge, 
he returned the same year, and entered upon his duties in that in- 
stitution, which position he held but one year. 

His labors, trials, and illnesses had made such inroads upon his 
physical constitution that when he left his theological chair he 
was unfitted for further continuous labors, and the remainder of 
his life was spent somewhat in seclusion, his time being occupied, 
when the state of his health permitted, in the work of authorship. 

In 1835 he was married to Miss Elizabeth White, of Bristol, 
Pennsylvania, who lived about fourteen years. In 1856 he 
married Miss Emma C. Beardslee, of Paterson, New Jersey; but 
after nineteen months he was again left alone, his wife and a 
daughter of six months being taken within two days of each other. 

In his earlier ministry, Dr. Landis was very popular and very 
successful as a preacher. His ministry was greatly blessed in 
building up feeble churches and in the conversion of souls. He 
was continually called on by pastors, both in the country and in 
the cities, to aid them in conducting "revival" meetings, in which 
he was eminently successful. 

While living in Philadelphia or its vicinity, he was able to select 
a library of old theological works from those brought to this 
country from Europe in colonial times by religious refugees, and 
from those sent by Napoleon from the monasteries of France, and 
among them were many books of rare value. He added to them 
modern works of the highest character, and thus, in the course of 
years, collected a large and very valuable library. It was selected 
chiefly with reference to the exposition and defence of the great 
doctrines which he believed. He made himself acquainted with 
his books; examining each one with care, and studying most of 
them thoroughly, whether written in English, Latin, Greek, 



BIOGRAPHIC A L. 



ix 



Hebrew, Italian. French, or German, lie mastered bis library, and 
knew just where to go for any information he desired. 

As an author, he gained the reputation of being a vigorous 
writer, and of possessing vast information, accurate scholarship, 
.and profound learning. As a controversialist he was fearless, but 
always fair and generous. His first publication was a small work 
on the Trinity, printed in his twenty-first year, yet of such merit 
that it long held a place on the list of books for reference at 
Princeton. When at the age of twenty-nine he sent his articles to 
the Biblical Repository, the editor submitted them to Prof. Moses 
Stuart, of Andover, who, in his reply, said : " By all means bring 
so valuable a writer upon the tapis. He is too valuable to have 
his talents buried. A man who has ability and patience to write 
and study in this way should not be permitted to lie still." He 
became from this time a frequent and valued contributor to this 
and other learned quarterlies. When Prof. Bush published his 
book on the Resurrection, Dr. Landis was one of the first to whom 
a copy was sent with the request for an expression of opinion upon 
its merits. This he frankly gave, with the information that he 
should feel obliged to reply to it. The reply was so thorough an 
exposure on every side that the editor of the Presbyterian, Be v. 
Dr. Engles, in his notice of the work, said that perhaps it was a 
defect that the author, in treating the subject, was too anxious to 
demolish every part of the theory of Prof. Bush. The latter 
showed his Christian manhood in acknowledging his defeat, erasing 
the name of that book from the subsequent lists of his publica- 
tions, and in continuing till his death on terms of intimate friend- 
ship with Dr. Landis. 

His work on Campbellism, "Babbah Taken," ranks among the 
best books brought out by that famous controversy, and did a good 
work in its day. His " Liberty's Triumph," an epic poem, was 
used as a text-book in the New York schools. His work on the 
" Immortality of the Soul" is one of marked ability and learning. 
Besides these, he wrote other books of less note, furnished for 
publication a large number of addresses, sermons, poems, and 
magazine articles, was a constant contributor to various religious 
journals, and was one of the principal writers for the Danville 
Review during its brief existence. 

Dr. Landis has been described as " heroic in mould and mind. 



X 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 



Considerably over six feet in height, he was as erect as an Indian,, 
and had the development of an athlete, — massive and muscular. 
Above a massive chest was poised a noble and impressive head. 
Always cleanly shaven, his face was remarkable for the perfection 
of the large and striking features. In early life he had dark hair, 
but with age it whitened, and he wore it in long masses, pushed 
back from his forehead and falling to his neck. The brow was 
bold and high, and the keen gray eyes were topped by shaggy 
eyebrows. Everything about him suggested massiveness, and he 
had a grand leonine movement of limb and sweep of arm that 
completed the picture. He was an almost perfect specimen of 
physical manhood, and with this was combined a simple direct- 
ness of purpose, a kindliness and gentleness of manner, a cool 
courage and unflinching determination, that marked him as a 
singularly endowed man." 

His last days were spent among his books, which were a solace 
to him in his loneliness, until his physical sufferings became too 
great for him to hold converse with the great authors who had 
been the companions of his life. It has been well said that " his 
library had a character. Its soul was the Bible. Every book 
more or less directly helped him to understand or to explain it. 
As health declined they were neglected. The cluster of books at 
his side grew less, till the Bible alone was left. With it he began 
his studies, and with it he closed them." On the 24th of January,. 
1883, after great and protracted sufferings, which he bore with 
patience and Christian heroism, he departed this life in the full 
assurance of a blessed immortality, and with unclouded faith in 
the Saviour whom he loved so well, and whom he had served so 
faithfully. 



iSToTE. 

In the autumn of 1 877, when Dr. Landis' health was rapidly 
failing, and his death seemed to be at hand, at his request the 
Chancellor and President of the Central University of Kentucky 
visited him at his home in Danville. He then announced to them 
his desire and purpose to present to that institution his large and 
valuable library, which he wished them officially to receive. This 
was done, and the deed of gift was duly recorded. This valuable 
donation, which was unsolicited and unexpected, was accompanied 
with the request that the University would publish his work on 
Original Sin and Imputation, which was then in manuscript and 
ready for the press. Contrary to his expectations, his health im- 
proved, and he continued to live until January, 1883, as above 
stated. Immediately after his death, his executor, according to 
the requirement of his last will and testament, and of the deed of 
gift, delivered the library to the authorities of the University, and 
the manuscript was put into their hands for publication. In ac- 
cordance, therefore, with the distinguished author's expressed de- 
sire, his great and scholarly work is now presented by Central- 
University to the Christian public. 

Cextrae University, 

Richmond, Kentucky, July 15th, 1884. 



PREFACE. 



THE doctrine concerning Imputation and Original Sin, as in- 
culcated, now and for many years past, in the Theological 
School at Princeton, (N. J.), was regarded by the late Dr. Robert 
J. Breckinridge, and by many others in our Church, as a radical 
departure from the recognized Augustinian theology, or Calvinism ; 
and his own position, as stated and denned with great clearness in 
his Theology, was sustained by the present writer in a series of 
articles in the Danville Revieiv for the years 1861 and 1862. The 
Princeton Professor, however, has, in his recently issued Theology, 
reasserted his own views without modification, and has likewise 
reiterated the announcement (in the accuracy of which we entirely 
concur) that the difference in this issue is fundamental to evan- 
gelical doctrine. The design of the present tractate, therefore, is 
to furnish a thorough historical, theological, and exegetical discus- 
sion of the essential points which that issue involves. 

When preparing the former .essay (consisting of the articles 
above referred to), though we had not so fully and critically ex- 
amined the great mass of facts relating to the issue as we have 
since been able to do, we saw and announced that Dr. Hodge had 
perpetrated a most unaccountable mistake as to the meaning which 
the terms guilt and invmediate and antecedent imputation possess 
in the recognized theology of the Reformation. But we were 
sanguine enough to suppose that the difference between the the- 
ology inculcated at Princeton, and that which was then taught at 
Danville might be lessened by a kindly conducted and thorough 
discussion, comparing facts and clearly elucidating principles; and 
we had designed to effect this if possible. That hope, however, 
was abandoned on the appearance of Dr. Hodge's late work, for 



xiv 



PREFACE. 



lie therein not only insists on the entire accuracy of his previously 
advanced statements, but his reiteration of the accusations of 
fundamental error against the views he opposes can leave to us 
no possible alternative but either to refute the unfounded allega- 
tion, or by our silence allow the inference that we are indifferent 
to the interests both of the truth and of the Church of God. 

In his presentation of the subject, moreover, Dr. Hodge has 
made no direct allusion to the Theology of Dr. Breckinridge, nor 
to the discussion in the Danville Review, nor yet to the very able 
discussion by Dr. Schaff, in his exegesis of Romans v. 12-21, in 
the American edition of Lange on Romans. And our explanation 
for citing and referring to him so directly as we have done, is, 
that there does not exist in the whole body of the recognized 
Augustinian theology, from the time of Calvin until now, the 
theory and exegesis which are here investigated, except as they 
may be referred to or cited in order to be refuted and condemned. 
It would be impossible therefore to do the subject justice without 
such references to and citations of his writings. There are oc- 
casionally in the Revised Edition of his Commentary on Romans, 
as well as in his recently published Theology, what appear to be 
covert allusions to the positions taken in the Danville Review.. 
But it has been supposed that Dr. Hodge did not design to invite 
special attention to that discussion ; for he certainly has, so far as 
any such references are concerned, avoided any open pretext for a 
rejoinder. While, on the contrary, we being desirous to secure at- 
tention to all that he has written on the subject, have fully and 
freely referred to and cited his writings whenever the discussion 
has rendered it necessary. We must express our regret, however, 
that his denunciatory language and attempts at ridicule, not less 
than his accusations of error, so often and so imperiously repeated 
in his writings, against what we are assured is the truth of God, 
have left us no alternative but to repel them in a manner equally 
decided ; for we should regard any succumbing to such assump- 
tions, and to accusations so utterly unfounded and yet so serious r 
as little short of treachery to the cause of Christ. 

In our former discussion (in the Danville Review) from a desire 
to avoid the very appearance of anything like captious criticism, 
we erred by employing, in some instances (though contrary to Dr. 
Hodge), the terms antecedent and immediate imputation in the 



PREFACE. 



XV 



sense in which he employs them ; that is, as equivalent to gratui- 
tous imputation — a sense in which they never are employed by the 
Augustinian theologians — all of whom recognize an objective and 
moral basis for the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. 
From Dr. Hodge's use of those terms, and from the deference 
with which we had ever regarded his affirmations, it was not un- 
reasonable for us to suppose that they might have been so em- 
ployed, at least occasionally, by some of the theologians to whom 
he had referred as indorsing his representations. But in this we 
were wholly mistaken. In the present work, therefore, and when 
referring to his views, we have uniformly employed the word 
which expresses the meaning he attaches to those terms — the im- 
putation of sin for which he contends being strictly gratuitous. 
Nor had we even then a full apprehension of the antagonism of 
this theory of doctrine and exegesis to the whole Calvinistic sys- 
tem. As regards imputation we saw that he was in error — in- 
culcating a rejected and exploded doctrine. But from his per- 
emptoriness we took for granted that his exegesis might, per- 
haps, have had a supporter or more amongst the representative 
divines of the Church; and we saw, moreover, that the principle 
-underlying his theory of imputation was logically fundamental to 
the supralapsarian scheme, though not generally recognized as such 
by that school; and hence we treated the subject mainly from that 
standpoint. But the facts, as shown in the present work (that is, 
so far as the argument requires that they be elicited), are, that 
the supralapsarians do not go the length to which Dr. Hodge has 
gone in carrying out this principle, but discountenance his ap- 
plication of it to the doctrine of the imputation of the Adamic 
sin, and that as a body they reject the exegesis by which he would 
justify that application. We felt assured, however, that as the 
years rolled on, which were required by Dr. Hodge to prepare his 
lectures for publication, the re-investigation would not only reveal 
his mistake of supposing that such views on imputation and ori- 
ginal sin had been taught by any representative divine of the 
Church, but likewise induce him to acknowledge that the Church 
herself had fully and most emphatically recognized as God's own 
truth the principles which he had been denouncing, and that con- 
sequently, there would be no further accusations of error against 
his brethren who supported them; in which case we had deter- 



xvi 



PREFACE, 



mined to say no more on the subject. But the renewed and more- 
thorough investigation which his late work has rendered impera- 
tive (the results of which are contained in this volume), leaves to 
us not the shadow of a doubt that such a procedure would have 
been egregiously wrong, and that the Church herself can ulti- 
mately and logically have no possible alternative but either to 
abandon all the distinctive principles of the Augustinian or evan- 
gelical system of doctrine, or to reject this theory utterly and in 
all its parts. Of the legitimacy of this conclusion, however, our 
readers must judge for themselves. Our concern is simply with 
the facts in the case. 

The hostility to the writer personally, which was awakened by 
the appearance of his former essay (in the Danville Revievj, and 
by two later articles on the same subject in the Southern Pres- 
byterian Review, Columbia, S. C. 1 ), and which has continued with 
unabated virulence until the present time," might here be properly 
a subject for remark ; and were he to follow the precedent which 
many great and good men have furnished in circumstances not 
dissimilar, he would call attention to the facts in the case. But 
his aim being to discuss the theme itself, as announced on the title 
page, he shall not deviate therefrom, except when a reference to 
other topics may require it in the way of illustration. He may 
here say, however, that fatuity alone could suppose that such as- 
saults may ultimately succeed in preventing a thorough discussion 
of the subject-matter in question. The facts alleged do exist, and 
consequently they are either to be met and shown to be irrelevant 
to the purpose for which they are alleged, or the conclusions they 
sustain must be regarded as legitimate. He can deeply sympa- 
thize with the feelings of affection which pupils may entertain to- 
wards a revered instructor ; but the legitimate expression of such 
emotions neither is nor can be in consonance with such efforts as 
those referred to. And if it be indeed the truth of God which 
these individuals are thus endeavoring to override and suppress, then 
let them look to it ; for in that case an iniquity has been perpe- 
trated which justice can never regard as expiated (unless devoutly 
repented of) until every wanton assault shall have recoiled upon 

1 See that Review for April, 1875, pp. 298-315, on " Unthinkable Proposi- 
tions and- Original Sin," and likewise for April, 1876, pp. 318-353, on 11 The 
Gratuitous Imputation of Sin." 



PREFACE. 



XVII 



its projector, and upon such as have wantonly lent to it aid and 
encouragement. We may adopt, therefore, the language of 
Hengstenberg, in the preface to his work on Daniel : " The au- 
thor thinks that he has a right to expect that, as he has employed 
arguments in his book, he will be answered by arguments. If this 
righteous demand be not acceded to, as he can hardly imagine it 
will be after the experience he has had, . . . the loss will not fall 
upon him, but upon those who endeavor through abuse to annihi- 
late evidence." 

The writer claims no such exemption from liability to error and 
mistake as these persons have insinuated; and their foolish en- 
deavor, both at home and abroad, to make the impression that he 
is unworthy of credit as a writer on theology, is worthy of the 
" ring " that concocted it, and it is obvious that it was concocted 
solely for the disreputable purpose of rendering in public estima- 
tion a rejoinder to his argument unnecessary. And then, more- 
over, they ought to consider that such conduct is (agreeably to the 
Dean of St. Patrick's) well calculated to flatter the vanity of even 
a more modest man than my traducers will allow me to be. He 
says that, "When a true genius appears in the world you may 
knoio him by this sign, that all the dunces are in confederacy 
against him." There may possibly be exceptions ; and some who 
are not "geniuses" may, perhaps, be thus treated; and if so, we 
claim the privilege, which our traducers will readily accord to us, 
of ranking as an exception. But it would ill become them to ob- 
ject, should we, in consideration of the ground they have so abun- 
dantly furnished, lay claim to even the higher honor. 

The following paragraph is as fully adapted to the present work 
as to that for which it was originally prepared : " The reader will 
probably observe that the same thoughts recur in different parts 
of the work. This was in some measure unavoidable, from the 
affinity between topics which, however, required a separate con- 
sideration; nor was there much solicitude to avoid it, as it is of 
benefit to many in whose minds the general course of reasoning 
might be confused or enfeebled without the aid of occasional 
repetitions." 1 

While the writer would humbly bespeak for the work the candid 

1 Preface to Plea for Communion, by Dr. John M. AEason. (Xew York, 
1816.) 



xviii 



PREFACE. 



consideration of all who love the Church and her theology, he 
earnestly hopes that no instance of the employment of sophistry 
or misrepresentation, or of any other of the degrading arts of am- 
bitions controversy, occurs therein. If, however, through human 
infirmity, any instance of the kind has escaped his attention, he 
trusts that it may meet with merited detection and exposure ; and 
for himself he should regard no censure as too severe with which 
.such a procedure might be visited. 

K. W. L. 

Danville, Ky., May 16, 1878. 



V 



ORIGINAL SIN 

AND 

GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



§ 1. Introductory and Explanatory. 

THE statements contained in this section will explain the occa- 
sion for the preparation of the present work, and are re- 
quired in view of sundry inaccurate representations in relation 
thereto, and will, moreover, serve as a general introduction to the 
discussion itself. 

In the autumn of 1859, and by the advice of his physicians, the 
writer visited the mountainous district of Southern Kentucky, 
(Pulaski county,) in the hope of there being able to recuperate his 
health, which had become greatly prostrated through the pre- 
valence of malaria in his field of pastoral labor in the Grand River 
Valley of Michigan ; and as he derived essential benefit from the 
change of air and climate, he concluded to remain, at least for a 
season, and soon after accepted an invitation to a field of prospec- 
tive usefulness in that district, and united with the Presbytery of 
Transylvania. 

About the same time, or perhaps a little earlier, Dr. S. J. Baird 
issued the Elohivi Revealed, which became the occasion of some 
sharp, discussion between himself and the professor of theology in 
Princeton Theological -Seminary ; and during the early part of the 
year the late Rev. Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge also had published 
his Theology Subjectively Considered, which, with the previous 
volume, was very rudely assailed, and his admirable exposition of 
the doctrine of imputation also, though differing from the view of 
Dr. Baird (so far at least as relates to the application of philosophv 
for its elucidation), was impugned as a radical departure from the 



2 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



recognized theology of the Augustinian or Calvinistic Church. In 
the latter part of the year 1860, the issue of the Danville Review 
was resolved upon, soon after which the writer received from the 
Faculty of the Danville Theological Seminary a request to furnish 
for publication in the Review an exposition of the doctrine of im- 
putation — a subject on which he had in the course of conversation 
unfolded his views. 1 The request was complied with, and in 
September following the first article of the series appeared, and the 
last was issued in December, 1862. The essay itself had been 
completed (as published), in 1861 ; but as our late national conflict 
was then fully inaugurated, and the war had entered Southern 
Kentucky, in the neighborhood of his charge, so that he could no 
longer reside in the vicinity, he, in December, 1861, left the MS. 
in the hands of Dr. Breckinridge to superintend its publication, 
and entered the United States army as chaplain, — continuing in 
the service until June, 1865, when General Thomas (though the 
regiment was still continued in active service until the ensuing 
September) kindly accepted his resignation in view of his appoint- 
ment by the General Assembly to the chair of Dr. Breckinridge 
during the year, for which the Doctor had obtained leave of 
absence. 

The author had had no intention to write on the subject anterior 
to his reception of this request of the faculty. But their ex- 
pressed wish, supported as it was by a strong conviction on his 
part, and growing out of the discussion by Drs. Thorn well, Hodge 
and Baird, that the subject had become needlessly perplexed, and 
ought to be disentangled, induced him to change his purpose. 
He therefore entered upon the work, though not until he had 
obtained from Dr. Breckinridge an assurance that, Deo favente, a 
compliance with this request should be followed by his own com- 
pliance with a request of mine, to- wit: that with as little delay 
as possible he would proceed to prepare for publication the third 
or concluding volume of his Theology, which had not as yet been 

1 The request was communicated to me by Dr. Breckinridge in a letter 
from which the following is an extract : '''Humphrey, Yerkes, and myself had 
a conference to-day [December 19, I860], the result of which was that you 
ought to prepare for us, when it suits you, that paper I have worried you 
about on the history of the doctrine of imputation (embracing that of head- 
ship) in our reformed scientific theology, embracing also its symbolic state- 
ment. A fine article from your pen would [do] incalculable good." 



INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY. 



3 



fully committed to writing. 1 At the request of Dr. Brooks and 
his session, I had, early in 1861, made an arrangement to supply 
the pulpit of the Second Church, St. Lonis, (Mo.), during his ab- 
sence in Europe. He returned soon after my second article of 
the series was finished. And the war, as above stated, having 
been fully inaugurated in Southern Kentucky, prevented a return 
to my pastoral charge and library, so that the third -part of the 
essay (contained in the four numbers of the Review for 1862), is 
not so full and complete as I had originally designed. 

In pursuing the argument through those six articles, a portion 
of the mistakes and misconceptions existing in the writings of Dr. 
Hodge on the subject was unavoidably referred to, but in a kind 
and apologetic spirit, though many of them, as may be seen by a 
reference to the facts, are of a very grave and serious character, 
while in the argument itself the- whole ground of the previous 
discussion was carefully traversed; and the conclusion arrived at 
was, that Dr. Hodge's theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin 
constitutes no part of the recognized theology of the Calvinistic 
church. 

The essay made a strong impression on the reflecting and 
scholarly minds of our own and other communions who had 
favored it with a perusal; and Dr. Hodge being still in posses- 
sion of all his mental and physical powers, and having, moreover, 
just evinced 2 a vigorous purpose to rebut all exceptions seriously 
taken against his views on imputation and original sin, it was by 
many supposed that there would be no lack of a rejoinder ; though, 
for my own part, knowing as I did the facts in the case, I felt as- 
sured that he would avoid it if possible. A rude assault, at war 
not only Avith propriety but integrity, was made in the Philadel- 
phia Presbyterian, over the initials of a Hibernian alumnus of 
Princeton Seminary (who was anticipating a return to his own 
country), in an attempt to discredit the essay on the alleged 

1 The coming on of the war. and the active and efficient part which Dr. 
Breckinridge was called to take on behalf of the government, induced neces- 
sarily a postponement of the labor ; and the work was thus from time to time 
delayed until age and its increasing infirmities placed it beyond his power to 
do full justice to the subject. 

2 In his review of Dr. Baird's work above referred to. See Princeton Bevieic 
for April and October, 1860. 



4 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



ground that a word in Turrettin had been purposely mistranslated 1 
(a word, moreover, which had nothing to do with the issue under 
discussion) ; and a clergyman of Philadelphia, who had previously 
accepted and attempted to sustain the theory of Dr. Hodge, ig- 
noring all the serious and unaccountable misstatements, errors, and 
mistranslations which had been shown to exist in his discussions 
on the subject, undertook (and, of course, in self-defence), to 
herald this alleged error as a complete refutation of the essay 
itself, and expressed in view of it, the highest admiration of the 
learning and ability of the alumnus. And here began and ended 
all open attempts at rejoinder. 2 But soon after the appearance of 
the essay, a report was extensively promulgated that Dr. Hodge 
had been directed by the authorities having in charge the interests 
of the seminary at Princeton to publish his lectures on theology. 
This, on the first glance, appeared as though some apprehension 
might have been awakened as to his doctrinal soundness, and that 
hence he had been required to explain. The result, however, 
seemed to wear a different aspect; and whatever may prove to 
be the actual solution, it certainly did appear as though Dr. Hodge 
deemed it scarcely advisable to come into collision with the facts 
arid statements of the essay while fresh in the memory of those 
who had read and pondered them. For if otherwise, why avail 
himself of the forementioned requirement to consume a period of 
ten years in preparing for the press a course of lectures which, 
during his long theological professorship, he had so often repeated 
to his classes? The last article of my essay was issued in 1862, 
and in 1872 Dr. Hodge's Theology appeared. 

Were the subject intrinsically of less importance than it really 
is, the writer would much prefer to pursue it no farther, and to 
allow the facts and statements of the essay to continue to speak 
for themselves. But a failure to fulfil the avowal made therein,* 
that a-reiteration by Dr. Hodge of his groundless accusations of 
fundamental error against those who maintain what we are fully 
assured is the Calvinistic doctrine on the subject, would compel a 
more thorough exposure of the fallaciousness of his reasons for 
such accusation, must, undoubtedly, make the impression that the 



1 The word absolutely 'had been printed absolute. 

2 See note A. in the Appendix. 

3 See Danville Review for 1862, pp. 561, 562. 



INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY. 



5 



ground occupied by Dr. Breckinridge and the writer, and by the 
late Dr. Henry B. Smith, and Dr. Thornwell (in his Lectures), and 
by others, in relation to the Church doctrine, had been abandoned. 
Instead, therefore, of merely reissuing the essay itself enlarged, 
which was formerly contemplated, we have modified the form of 
the discussion, and the subject is herein taken up ^/e novo, and the 
aforesaid promise redeemed. 

The following letter from Dr. Breckinridge to Mr. Carter, of 
New York, refers to this matter ; and which, as it presents the 
Doctor's view of the great issues involved in the present dis- 
cussion, as well as a delineation of the work referred to, we here 
insert. The letter was forwarded to me by Mr. Carter at the re- 
quest of Dr. Breckinridge, who granted me permission to publish 
it, should occasion require. In elucidation of a clause which I 
have placed in parentheses (in paragraph 1), I would here state 
that the failure of my health prevented any formal undertaking 
of the work when first suggested to me by Dr. Breckinridge, and 
that, up to the time of the reception of the above-quoted letter 
from the Danville Faculty, I had designed to leave it to be per- 
formed by some abler pen. 

" Danville, Ky., December 9, 1865. 
" Robert Carter, Esq., of Robert Carter c& Brothers. 

" My Dear Sir : My friend, Rev. Dr. Landis, now temporarily 
filling my chair in the Theological Seminary here by appointment 
of the General Assembly, has made proposals to your firm, as he 
informs me, for the publication by you of a work written by him, 
the elements of which were published in successive numbers of 
the Danville Review. The work was originally undertaken by 
him upon very earnest suggestions by me (soon after the publica- 
tion of my first volume by your house) ; and after the publication 
of my second volume, and the establishment of our Review, the 
outline was published in the Review ; and now it is enlarged and 
perfected for an independent volume, — each time by my desire, 
as far as that may be supposed to have any effect. 

" I had many reasons for desiring what I urged Dr. Landis to 
undertake: chiefly, my profound sense of the all-pervading in- 
fluence of the doctrine of imputation, alike in scientific theology 
and in practical godliness ; the total want of any adequate, sepa- 



6 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



rate work with regard to that vital subject, in any language known 
to me ; and the manifest and dangerous tendencies in the theology, 
both formal and practical, of the present century, as well as of the 
past one, to destroy all the depth, the power, and the fruitfulness 
of the Calvinistic system, by want of knowledge and want of be- 
lief of the true history of this great doctrine in all ages, and its 
true place and control in the Christian system. If my own theo- 
logical writings have any special importance, no mean part thereof 
is derived from my close adherence to the views I maintain on 
this vast subject, in accordance with every evangelical creed from 
the Westminster standards to the Council of Nice. But I have 
treated it, not so much as a separate doctrine, but rather as a 
method and rule of the entire analogy of faith. What was wanted 
always was a distinct, separate, and sufficiently full history and 
demonstration of it as a doctrine of -the most decisive importance. 
It is this which Dr. Landis has admirably accomplished. Nor do 
I believe there exists now in life a single person who, all things 
considered, was more competent to this work. 

" You will not, therefore, take it amiss that I interfere so far as 
to express my strong desire to see this work of Dr. Landis pub- 
lished, and by your house. 

" Very truly, your friend, 

(Signed) "Ro. J. Breckinridge." 

It were a reasonable expectation that in this immediate connec- 
tion the writer should not only advert to (as in the preface), but 
bring to light more fully than has yet been done, the proceedings 
of certain individuals who have evinced a determination to sup- 
press at all hazards any further discussion of the principles which 
Dr. Hodge has been inculcating as the doctrine of the Church. 
Whether those persons at the outset contemplated the removal of 
Dr. Breckinridge and myself from the chairs in the Seminary to 
which we had been assigned by the largest vote, numerically, ever 
given to a professor by our General Assembly, is in no sense of the 
term problematical. The manoeuvering they employed to effect 
that result can admit of no other construction. But though (as I 
and my colleague then announced) it was easy to foresee, as the 
effect of their operations, the breaking up of the institution, at 
least for a time, nothing further was probably intended than to 
expel the theology as taught by Breckinridge, and to inaugurate 



INTRODUCTORY AND EXPLANATORY. 



7 



therein the then forthcoming lectures of Dr. Hodge. The per- 
sistent endeavors, likewise, to compel the author, through lack of 
employment, and, consequently, of subsistence, to leave the church 
of his choice, that he might thus, in effect, neutralize any subse- 
quent endeavors, -as well as those which he had previously made, 
to call attention to the great issue, would all (if our limits per- 
mitted the narration) here have an appropriate place. But though 
the whole affair is one with which the spiritual well-being of the 
Church, as well as her polity and the appliance of her constitu- 
tional provisions, are gravely interested, he is unwilling that any- 
thing which may be in any sense construed as mainly personal 
should be wrought into the discussion any farther than the essential 
details of the discussion itself may incidentally evolve. There 
are, indeed, those who would cover up such enormities on the 
monstrous plea that religion would be dishonored by their ex- 
posure. But as well might it have been argued that justice would 
be dishonored by the exposure and conviction of a Tweed. The 
facts, however, are so numerous, and the agents employed have 
been so imprudent and unscrupulous, that those facts cannot but 
transpire ultimately to the just surprise of all the true followers 
of Christ. 

To conclude. It is no secret that, for a considerable time past, 
many of the godly and excellent of our communion have expressed 
the apprehension that the Church, notwithstanding the appearance 
of her external prosperity, is not only in a state of spiritual de- 
clension, but is verging towards apostasy. The thought is sadden- 
ing and heart-crushing beyond all expression, and, coming from 
the source it does, should certainly not be treated lightly. In the 
past, as we know, it has often occurred that, when ambition and 
worldly policy have, to any controlling extent, obtained possession 
of an ecclesiastical community until they who sincerely endeavor 
to follow the simplicity of Christ, and in His spirit seek to carry 
out in their life and intercourse the rules which He has appointed 
for the guidance of His flock, are met and circumvented by worldly 
* craft and policy, He forsakes His ordinances and takes up His 
abode with His hidden ones, until judgment shall have gone forth, 
and either reclaimed the wanderer or driven her still onward, 
until she shall have even passed beyond the pale of His fold. 
Whether there be ground, therefore, for the apprehension referred 
to should be most seriously pondered. The subject has been re- 



8 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



peatedly alluded to even by the press. If, however, there be no 
sufficient ground for entertaining the apprehension, it may be 
safely dismissed, though prudence would surely dictate that we 
should not assume, on mere presumption, that no such reason can 
exist. Let rather a truthful regard to God's glory, and to the 
welfare of His flock, prompt to earnest scrutiny and watchfulness. 
But if, on the other hand, there be reason to apprehend that 
Christ may indeed be forsaking us (as there must be if vital 
differences in essential doctrine and fundamental errors really exist 
in our communion), much more does it become us to lay the 
matter to heart. If we are truly His servants, we cannot but 
regard our worldly interest as wholly subordinate to the welfare 
of His kingdom, whatever discomfort or privation it may demand 
of us to provide the remedy and save the Church. Fundamental 
differences in regard to saving truth have neither right nor title to 
exist in our Church ; and if they do exist therein, they prove that 
already we are sadly astray ; nor can they long continue without 
producing the most disastrous results. If, on the great issue in 
question, Dr. Hodge has inculcated the Pauline or Augustinian 
doctrine, any fundamental departure therefrom must, of necessity, 
involve our whole theological system ; and such departure should 
no more be tolerated or countenanced in our midst than avowed 
Socinianism itself. So that in such a case the Church would prove 
herself recreant to the trust confided to her by her exalted Head 
should she regard the matter as trivial. To attempt to cover up 
such a •state of things as of little or no account, to ridicule the 
interest felt therein as " antediluvian nonsense," and what not, or 
to attempt in any way to suppress the free and fair discussion of 
the issue, is not only unworthy of the Christian name, but if con- 
curred in, would evince that we have already apostatized from the 
faith of our fathers. And the same is of course true, mutatis mu- 
tandis, if Dr. Hodge has fundamentally departed from that doc- 
trine. Our own matured and abiding conviction is, that the view 
of this great truth as presented by Drs. Breckinridge and Schaff, 
and Henry B. Smith, and Thornwell (in his Lectures), and, in the * 
main, by Dr. Baird, is, beyond all peradventure, the doctrine 
which not only the Calvinistic, but the entire evangelical Church 
has always taught and defended as the truth of God ; and a sum- 
mary of the reasons which induce this conviction will be found on 
the ensuing pages. 



PART I. 



1VHEREIN THE QUESTION UNDER DISCUSSION IS CAKEFULLT 
EXAMINED, AND THE TRUE ISSUE STATED AND 
ILLUSTRATED. 



§ 2. The Importance of the Issue. 

THE question as to the high importance of the issue involved 
in this discussion should not be made to rest upon any mere 
ex parte statement or representation. There should be mutual 
concurrence therein. And it is eminently proper, moreover, that 
from the facts adduced our readers should be able to determine 
the question for themselves. We shall therefore here, at the out- 
set, lay before them the deliberate and often-expressed judgment 
of Dr. Hodge touching the point ; and we herewith add the as- 
surance of our full concurrence in his representation, so far as that 
point is concerned. In this way we may hope to arrive at useful 
results through the discussion. 

In his Theology, when treating formally of antecedent and im- 
mediate imputation, Dr. Hodge says, " There is a logical connec- 
tion, therefore, between the denial of the imputation of Adam's 
sin, and the denial of the scriptural doctrines of atonement and 
justification. The objections urged against the former bear equally 
against the latter doctrines. And it is a matter of history that 
those who reject the one reject also the other." 1 So also, in the 
JPrinceton Review for the year I860, when remarking on Dr. Baird ? s 
Elohim Revealed, he says, " The main point in the analogy between 
Christ and Adam, as presented in the theology of the Protestant 
Church, and as exhibited by the apostle, is, that as in the case of 
Christ, His righteousness, as something neither done by us nor 
wrought in us, is the judicial ground of our justification, with 
which inward holiness is connected as an invariable consequence ; 
so in the case of Adam, his offence, as something out of ourselves, 



1 Theology, Vol. IL page 201. 



10 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



a peccatum alienum, is the judicial ground of the condemnation of 
the race, of which condemnation, spiritual death, or inward corrup- 
tion, is the expression and the consequence. It is this principle 
which is fundamental to the Protestant theology and the evangeli- 
cal system, in the form in which it is presented in the Bible, which 
is strenuously denied by Dr. Baird, and also by the advocates of 
the doctrine of mediate imputation." 1 

" It is to illustrate this great fundamental doctrine of his \PauVs~\ 
gospel that he refers to the parallel case of Adam, and shows that, 
antecedently to any act of our own, before any corruption of na- 
ture, the sentence of condemnation passed upon all men for the 
offense of one. To deny this, and to assert that our own subjec- 
tive character is the ground of the sentence, is not only to deny the 
very thing the apostle asserts, but to overturn- his whole argument. 
It is to take sides with the Jews against the apostle, and to maintain 
that the righteousness of one man cannot be the ground of the 
justification of another." 2 

Our readers will observe that in this language, and in all similar 
utterances from his writings, Dr. Hodge employs the term impu- 
tation (and immediate and antecedent imputation^ to signify gra- 
tuitous imputation, which is his great npmrov (>>sud<>?. And cer- 
tainly no one can doubt that the forecited utterances were carefully 
and deliberately pronounced. The doctrine therein asserted has 
been earnestly inculcated upon a large proportion of the ministry 
of our Church ; and if the statements are erroneous they should 
not, of course, be persisted in. If, however, they are what they 
purport to be — utterances of the recognized Calvinistic theology — 
they certainly can have nothing to fear from a fair and thorough 
investigation. Nor should it be regarded as unreasonable or im- 
proper, therefore, that we who regard them as unauthorized, un- 
founded, and at direct variance with the Augustinian teaching, so 
far as they affirm the gratuitous imputation of sin, should be un- 
willing silently to assent to what we are assured must, if admitted,, 
effect a fundamental revolution in the theology of the Church. 
And in direct view of those representations, we affirm as a historic 
fact, susceptible of any degree of logical verification, that neither 
in our own nor in any other land has the Augustinian or Calvinis- 



1 Theology, Vol., II. page 341. 



2 Ibid, pages 344, 345. 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 



11 



tic church ever taught or indorsed the doctrine of the gratuitous 
imputation of Adam's merely personal sin to his posterity as the 
.sole ground for inflicting upon them the penalty of spiritual death r 
or moral corruption: that is. in other icords. the Calvinistic church 
has never received or tctught this theory of Dr. Hodge, nor his ex- 
positicm of Homan s v. 13-21. out the very opposite. 

I 3. The State of the Question. 
The doctrine presented and insisted on in our former essay, 
and which had been plainly announced by Augustine, and always 
entertained by the Calvinistic church, affirms (1), The natural and 
federal headship of Adam: i'2>. That the threatening in Genesis 
ii. 17, included not only the loss of original righteousness, but 
spiritual and eternal death : and ; 3 ■. That in this threatening both 
Adam and his posterity were included: and consequently^ that all 
the evils which his posterity suffer result from the first transgres- 
sion, since in that transgression >as Paul affirms i they "all sinned." 
and were thus constituted .i^aoztu/.m. or veritaole sinners. In other 
words, they, by participating in that offense, became culpable: 
and hence from that first sin. wherein "all sinned." originated the 
hereditary corruption in which we all are born. This icas and. is 
our position, and the doctrine thus defined has always been the 
faith of oiii' Church. The Princeton professor, however, has de- 
parted from this doctrine by insisting < as strenuously as the So- 
cinian and Remonstrant schools did formerly,) that in the first 
offense the posterity of Adam contracted no subjective ill-desert : 
and. moreover, that all the evils they suffer are penal inflictions on 
account of Adam's merely personal sin: a sin which, as he affirms, 
is to them purely a peccaturn alien urn. or foreign sin: a doctrine 
which, as we regard it, must not only logically isolate its advocate 
from all actual sympathy with the teaching of the Reformation on. 
original sin. but the maintenance of which (as we claim, and as we 
shall show,) is fraught with consequences the most disastrous to 
the entire system of revealed truth. And we shall, moreover, 
evince that when Dr. Hodge alleges that Augustine. 1 and the Latin 
Church.- and the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. 3 have taught, 
as he teaches, the doctrine of a gratuitous imputation of Adam's 



1 See Theology, Vol, II.. pp. 157-164. 



2 Ibid. p. ISO. 3 Ibid. p. 196. 



12 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



merely personal sin, he affirms that which is not only unfounded, 
but that which is totally disproved by fact. We take issue with 

HIM THEREFORE DIRECTLY ON THE WHOLE QUESTION ! And We State, 

moreover, not invidiously, but as a historical verity to be established 
in the sequel (though a reference to it is here required in illustra- 
tion of the importance and true state of the question), that at the 
precise point where Dr. Hodge thus departs from the universally 
recognized teaching of the Church on original sin, and denounces 
the principle concerned as unintelligible, impossible, and nonsensi- 
cal, (as he does most emphatically, 1 ) the Socinian and Remonstrant 
.schools took their departure, and employ in relation thereto the 
same style of sarcasm and denunciation. The Protestant Church, 
as we have stated, held and taught that the posterity of Adam 
participated in the first offense, and that therefore it was justly 
imputed to them, as well as to our first parents themselves, who 
were guilty of its formal perpetration ; while, on the contrary, the 
Socinians and Remonstrants affirmed that any such participation 
was ipso facto impossible, and, as we shall see, denounced and 
ridiculed the representation ; and, on the ground of this alleged 
impossibility, denied, just as Dr. Hodge has done, that the sin 
could be imputed to us (as it was the personal sin of Adam alone,) 
except by a merely forensic imputation. And they thereupon 
maintain that the evils which have involved us as a result of that 
transgression are not strictly punishments, but calamities inflicted 
by the mere will or sovereign pleasure of God. Dr. Hodge like- 
wise maintains, that in the race there was no objective guilt, nor 
.any participation of the first offense, nor guilt of any kind previous 
to the forensic imputation of the peccatum alienum ; but he names 
the evils referred to punishments, rather than calamities : a dis- 
tinction hardly practical in the case, since all admit that "punish- 
ments" not incurred through our own fault or agency, and which 
are inflicted without a basis of objective demerit, are merely ca- 
lamities. 

In further elucidation of the question, it may be stated that, as 
Dr. Hodge explicates the doctrine of original sin from the stand- 
point of the federal relation, subordinating thereto the natural re- 
lation (the logical sequence of making the corruption of the race 



1 See his Revised Commentary on Romans, chapter v. 12-21. 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 



13 



the penal consequence of Adam's personal sin), and thus departs 
from the Church doctrine which demands an equal recognition of 
both relations ; so Placaeus went to the opposite extreme, and ex- 
plicated the doctrine on the basis of the natural relation to the logi- 
cal exclusion of the federal. 1 For though claiming to maintain both 
relations, he, by making native corruption, as derived from Adam,, 
causal of the imputation, ignored the federal relation as effectually 
as Dr. Hodge ignores the natural, by making Adam's purely per- 
sonal sin, or the peccaium alienum, through a merely forensic im- 
putation, causal of the depravity of the race. Each theory is alike 
repudiated by the Church, as furnishing no adequate ground for 
explicating the doctrine of original sin. 

The philosophical realistic theory, which assumes the personal 
identity of Adam and the race, and on such ground attempts a 
solution of the problem involved in the apostolic statement 
(Eomans v. 12, IS, 19), has never been accepted by the Church 
as expressive of her faith, though it has had many eminent de- 
fenders. She has always disclaimed every attempt at philosophical 
solution, and is, therefore, (as stated in our former essay), quite as 
unwilling to sanction the solution which philosophical realism pro- 
poses as to sanction the solution proffered by nominalism. She 
has always accepted the inspired statement (that " all sinned") as 
a fact ; and in that fact, though of itself wholly inexplicable, her 
inner consciousness has ever recognized an explanatory principle^ 
which furnishes an intelligible and all-sufficient basis for the solu- 
tion of all the great problems which have been started respecting 
the calamities of the race, and their reconcilableness with the 
holiness, justice and goodness of God. But let us now hear Dr. 
Hodge. The subjoined citations will serve both to illustrate and 
confirm the foregoing representations in regard to his views. 

In the Princeton Essays 2 he says : " Therefore it is for the one 
offense of the one man that the condemnatory sentence (the xpifta 
c-9 7.a~dy.pt;ia) has passed on all men." Also, in his late work, when 
referring to the analogy in Romans v. 12—21, he says: "The 

1 Placasus, by mediate imputation, meant that, as Adam's posterity derive 
from him'a corrupt nature, and so possess morally the same character, they 
incur with him the like condemnation. See also Dr. Shedds' History of 
Doctrines, Vol. II., pp. 158-166. 

2 First Series, p. 161, Wiley & Putnam, N. Y., 1846. 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



parallel is destroyed, tlie doctrine and argument of the apostle 
are overturned, if it be denied that the sin of Adam, as antecedent 
to any sin or sinfulness of our own, is the ground of our condem- 
nation." 1 

Again : " There is a causal relation between the sin of Adam 
and the condemnation and sin of his posterity." "His sin was 
not our sin. Its guilt does not belong to us personally. It is im- 
puted to us as something not our own — a peccatum alienurn — and 
the penalty of it, the forfeiture of the Divine favor, the loss of 
original righteousness, and spiritual death, are its sad conse- 
quences." 2 And after describing the universality of sin in the 
race, he adds : " The only solution, therefore, which at all meets 
the case is the scriptural doctrine that all mankind fell in Adam's 
transgression , and, bearing the penalty of his sin, they come into 
the world in a state of spiritual death, the evidence of which is 
seen and felt in the universality, the controlling power, and the 
early manifestation of sin." 3 Hereupon follow his citations of 
the " Confessions of the Reformed Churches," in Latin, 4 as though 
to verify the accuracy of this, his representation of the church 
doctrine ; and yet, in not one of them can the principle be found 
which he has thus portrayed. In fact, Dr. Hodge is obliged to 
admit this substantially in the summary he presents of their 
teaching. 5 

Again : " The sin of Adam did not make the condemnation of 
all men merely possible; it was the ground of their actual con- 
demnation." "All mankind yjere i?i Adam. He was the federal 
head and representative of the race. All men sinned in him, and 
fell with him in his first transgression. The sentence of condem- 
nation for his own offense passed upon all m,en" 6 "It was by 
one man, he (Paul) says, that sin and death passed upon all men, 
because all sinned. They sinned in and through that one man. 
His sin was the sin of all, in virtue of the union between him and 
them." 7 

These citations certainly afford a sufficiently full expression of 
this theory. Andjby comparing the view thus presented with the 
views hereinafter to be presented from the ancient Armenians, 

1 See his Theology, Vol. II., pp. 212, 213. 

2 Ibid , pp. 215, 225. 3 Ibid., p. 240. 4 Ibid., pp. 228, 229. 
5 Ibid., pp. 230, 231. 6 Ibid., pp. 551, 552. 7 Ibid., p. 202. 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 



15 



and from Scotus, Ochamus, Erasmus, Pighius, Catharinus, and 
others, it will be perceived that, on the great points immediately 
under discussion, they are one and the same; that is, they all 
concur in affirming, (1,) That the first sin was- the sin of the first 
man only, and not of the race ; (2,) That it was charged upon his 
posterity gratuitously, i. e., without any subjective demerit of their 
own; and (3,) That through this imputation that one sin of the 
one man became the procuring cause of all the evils which have 
come upon the race. But before proceeding to examine the argu- 
ments by which Dr. Hodge would sustain this theory, it seems 
necessary just here, in order to prevent any needless mystification 
of the issue, to inquire into the meaning of the phraseology which, 
in the above citations, we have italicised. 

In presenting for the consideration or acceptance of our fellow- 
men any really important principle, it is obvious that all equivocal 
or ambiguous phraseology should be avoided, so far as such avoid- 
ance is possible. And, moreover, that in relation to matters sacred 
or divine, the obligation becomes absolutely imperative. How, 
then, may we regard these conditions as met or fulfilled in the 
foregoing exposition of a principle which is affirmed by its author 
to involve (according as it may be either accepted or rejected) the 
well-being of the Church herself, and the very truth and existence 
of the religion of Christ ? For Dr. Hodge has repeatedly affirmed 
that such is the fact. Let us, then, endeavor briefly to sift the 
inquiry. 

"We do not remember that the Doctor, anterior to the discussion 
of the subject in the Danville Review (of 1S61 and 1862), has, 
unless very sparingly, employed (in the delineation of his theory) 
the language which we have placed in italics in the forecited pas- 
sages. In his late work, however, it is of frequent occurrence. 
Has he, then, changed or in any degree modified his views of the 
doctrine itself \ Not at all. For he still affirms them more em- 
phatically, if possible, than before. Why, then, employ thus fre- 
quently the language referred to ? And how is that language to 
be construed or understood in the connection ? " 

Catharinus, as we shall see, in unfolding and defending this 
same theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, endeavors, in like 
manner, to incorporate with his statement the same expressions, 
his aim being obviously to foreclose the objection arising from the 



16 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



divine averment in Romans v. 12, that " ail sinned." 1 But whether 
that objection can be thus ignored will appear in the sequel. 

Whatever may be the ordinary or established usage of the terms 
referred to in the f orecited passages from Dr. Hodge, he confessedly 
employs them therein to convey no meaning which can be incon- 
sistent with his constant affirmation, that in the fall Adam alone 
contracted moral ill-desert or subjective guilt. For though in this 
language his posterity are declared to have sinned in and with him 
in that first transgression, the sentence of condemnation which 
passed- upon them was not for this their sin and fall in and with 
him, but for his sin and fall alone. Dr. Hodge, as he has so often 
previously announced, and now repeats in these very citations 
themselves, employs the terms to convey this and no other mean- 
ing, while in his Commentary on Romans v. 12-21, and in scores 
of other instances, he affirms that to suppose that the posterity 
themselves had contracted subjective guilt or depravity in the first 
sin, and anterior to the imputation to them of the peccatum 
alienum, or personal sin of Adam, and that this their sin was im- 
puted to them, would be in effect to subvert the doctrine of justi- 
fication by faith alone, and overturn the whole argument of the 
apostle. 2 

Let our readers, therefore, contemplate the statement: The 
posterity of Adam sinned and fell with him in his sin, and yet his 
sin (and not theirs) is the sole ground of their condemnation and 
punishment. His sin and fall, and their sin and fall in and with 
him, brought subjective guilt and criminality upon him, and yet 
left them free of all subjective guilt and criminality until after his. 
own sin and fall had been forensically imputed to them. They 
are condemned for his sin alone, and his sin alone was by "a sen- 
tence of condemnation" {xp-tfia et? xardzpt/ia) set over to their ac- 
count, and they are made forensically guilty of that sin alone, and not 
of their own sin and fall. Then, in virtue of the natural and federal 
relation between them and Adam (which in no way, however, 
connects them morally or> subjectively with his crime, according 
to Dr. Hodge), this sentence of condemnation really constitutes 

1 In a future section we shall have occasion to cite his remarks at the 
Council of Trent when presenting his theory. 

2 See especially his review of Dr. Baird's Elohim Revealed, in the April and 
October numbers of the Princeton Review for the year 1860. 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 



17 



their sinning and falling with him, so far as any ill-desert on their 
part is concerned ; for until this sentence comes upon them, they 
are free of all sin or guilt, whether inherited and inherent or im- 
puted, and free from all subjective ground of condemnation, even 
though they sinned in and fell with him who, in and through that 
very fall, did contract subjective criminality; so that their sin is 
produced solely by the forensic imputation of his sin to them. 
But as such imputation of a foreign sin could not, confessedly, 
take place until after the sin thus imputed had been perpetrated, 
so it is plain that they did not actually sin and fall with Adam, or 
when he sinned (as the apostle affirms they did), but after he 
had sinned and fallen. And if after he had sinned, then on 
what possible or conceivable ground or pretext do Dr. Hodge and 
Catharinus allege that we sinned in and fell with him ? His pos- 
terity were innocent (says Dr. Hodge,) previous to the imputation 
of the peccatum alienum, and it was this imputation itself which 
constituted them guilty. Their sinning and falling with him, 
therefore, can be neither more nor less than a judicial act of the 
Creator condemning them on account of a foreign sin of their 
father. But how, or upon what principle, an act of our holy and 
blessed Father in heaven is to be construed as our sinning and 
falling, and how it should come to be so described in a plain his- 
toric statement, Dr. Hodge has prudently left the reader to ex- 
plain. 

Such, then, are the results yielded by a fair analysis of the fore- 
cited language. A judicial sentence of the righteous and eternal 
Judge condemning a subjectively innocent race for a crime which 
had been previously perpetrated by their father, and of which he 
alone, with Eve, was subjectively guilty, may be fittingly and 
veraciously described in a dogmatic explanation of the occurrence, 
by saying that they sinned in and fell with their father in that 
criminal transaction. In view of which it need only be added, that 
if Dr. Hodge considers such an utterance intelligible, he surely 
should be less free than he has evinced himself to be in his appli- 
cation of the term "nonsensical" to the views of his brethren. 
But the word of God is not responsible for any such utterance. 

Before proceeding with the argument it will be fully in place 
here to illustrate the nature of this speculation on sinning and not 
sinning at the same time, and by one and the same act, by present- 
2 



18 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



ing a paragraph or two from the keen-edged satire of Pascal, on a 
sufficient grace that was not sufficient. 

" Where am I now," exclaimed I, " and what side am I to take 
here ? If I deny sufficient grace I am a Jansenist ; if I admit it 
with the Jesuits in such a sense that there is no necessity for effi- 
cacious grace, 1 am, say you, a heretic ; and if I concur with you 
I am against common sense. I am a madman, say the Jesuits. 
What then am I to do in this inevitable necessity of being deemed 
a madman, a heretic, or a Jansenist ? And to what a situation are 
we reduced if the Jansenists alone avoid confounding faith and 
reason, and thus save themselves at once from absurdity and error? 

" My good friend, the Jansenist, seemed pleased with my re- 
marks, and thought he had already gained me. He said nothing 
to me, however, but turning to the father, 'Pray,' said he, 'in 
what respect do you agree with the Jesuits V He replies, ' In this, 
that we both acknowledge that sufficient grace is given to all men.' 
4 But,' returned he, ' there are two things in the term sufficient 
grace : the sound, which is mere air, and the sense, which is real 
and significant. So that when you avow an agreement with the 
Jesuits in the -word, but oppose them in the sense, it is obvious 
that you disagree with them in the essential matter, though you 
accord in the term. Is this acting with openness and sincerity V 
''But,' said the good man, 'what cause of complaint have you, since 
we deceive no one by this mode of speaking; for in our schools 
we publicly declare that we understand the expression in a sense 
quite opposite to the Jesuits V ' I complain,' said my friend, ' that 
you do not declare to all the world that by sufficient grace you 
mean a grace which is not sufficient. Having changed the signifi- 
cation of the usual terms in religion, you are obliged in conscience 
to declare that when you admit of sufficient grace in all men, you 
really intend that they have not sufficient grace. Every one un- 
derstands the word sufficient in the same sense, the new Thomists 
.alone excepted. Women of all classes, who constitute one half the 
world, the whole court, the army, the magistrates, lawyers, me- 
chanics, artificers, and in fact the mass of mankind, the Dominicans 
apart, consider the word sufficient as denoting whatever is neces- 
sary. And no one is aware of your singular interpretation ; every 
where it is said that they maintain the doctrine of sufficient grace. 
What, then, is the natural inference, but that all men possess grace 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 



19 



sufficient for action, — especially when they are seen to coalesce 
with the Jesuits, who receive it in this sense for selfish and in- 
triguing purposes ? m But to return. 

Further, Dr. Hodge has the reputation of being able to express 
himself clearly and forcibly ; and the doctrine he is delineating in 
the passages referred to is simply, that the personal sin of Adam 
was forensically imputed to h is subjectively innocent posterity, and 
that thereupon they v:ere regarded and treated as sinners. In all 
his previous references to the topic he has expressed the idea 
without ambiguity. But in his late work, as above shown, he, 
like Catharinus, wrought into his explanation the phraseology that 
"the posterity of Adam sinned in him and fell with him, they 
sinned in or through that man" etc. Has he then ceased to hold 
that Adam's posterity were subjectively innocent when the impu- 
tation was made ? He says not. And he, moreover, affirms the 
contrary with vehemence, as our readers may see even in the same 
passages. Why then endeavor to incorporate with the delinea- 
tion of such a doctrine the expression they sinned in him, when, 
as he expressly affirms, their sinning was impossible, as they then 
had no existence ? Such a statement is also contrary to the facts 
in the case ; for the sin which was imputed to the race being a 
peccatum alienum, it could not be imputed to them until after it 
had been perpetrated. The expression, moreover, can in no way 
explain the ground of the imputation, for Dr. Hodge makes their 
sinning to consist in the imputation itself. It explains nothing, 
therefore, for it is impossible to regard the phrase they sinned as 
an explanation of the doctrine that they could not and did not si?). 
And for the same reason, it cannot in any way associate the theory 
itself with the teaching of our doctrinal standards. Why then 
insert phraseology of such a sort which at best could only perplex 
the true issue, and confuse the mind of a serious inquirer ? 

As Adam was already morally depraved when he reached forth 
his hand and partook of the interdicted tree, on what ground are 
we to conclude that his posterity likewise were not depraved when 
they really (and not putatively) sinned in him, and fell with him 
in that transgression ? Such is the Augustinian faith on the sub- 
ject. And what, then, is there in the utterance that can be re- 

1 Provincial Letters, Letter II. 



20 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



garded as excusing, or even extenuating, Dr. Hodge's violent de- 
nunciation and ridicule? 1 It lias the direct sanction of God's 
word, and is, moreover, clogged with no such incongruous sequences 
as attach to the theory which he has propounded in lieu of it. 
Why then treat it thus ? Is it because we did not then personally 
exist, and therefore could not have personally participated in the 
sin? But the Church has never taught that we did then per- 
sonally exist, or personally participate ; and yet she has ever 
affirmed that we did then sin " originally," "potentially" (dwdpiei) 
"by participation;" and to employ a more recent expression, "by 
an ethical appropriation of the guilt of the fall." But the mode 
in which this participation occurred, or by which it was effected, 
she has never professed to know, and therefore employs these ex- 
pressions to designate the sinning of the race as distinguished 
from the personal sinning of our first parents. For the fact of 
our actual sinning is historically announced as a momentary action 
of the past, (Romans v. 12-19,) and the objection that we could 
not then have participated, because we then had no manifested 
personal existence > if it could be made to apply to the case at all, 
is as fatal to the doctrine of any imputation itself as it could be to 
that of any participation in the offense. If a nonentity (for such 
Dr. Hodge alleges the posterity were at the time referred to) 
could not sin, a nonentity surely could not incur an imputation. 
And yet the Divine averment directly assures us that the sinning 
of the race actually occurred not after, but ivhen Adam sinned. 
And then, as both the act of Adam and the already existing 
corrupt inclination which induced its perpetration, are the grounds 
of his condemnation, what hinders that our participation in that 
sin and rebellion should, in like manner and along with his own 
sin as our head, constitute the ground of our condemnation ; that 
is, the ground on which the apostle affirms that death passed upon 
all? Why vary the ground in relation to his posterity, as Dr. 
Hodge has attempted to do ? 2 

Before we proceed to consider the method of reasoning by 
which Dr. Hodge would sustain his theory, we must offer a remark 

1 See especially his Revised Commentary on Romans, chapter v. 12-19. 

2 See in this connection our article on Unthinkable Propositions and Orig- 
inal Sin, in Southern Presbyterian Review for April, 1875, and another on the 
Gratuitous Imputation of Sin, in the number for April, 1876. 



THE STATE OF THE QUESTION. 



21 



on a point or two greatly insisted upon by him in connection 
with his claims on its behalf. And first, he objects repeatedly 
and persistently against the application of the term theory to de- 
signate his doctrine and exegesis on the subject. He frequently, 
and in a form calculated only to wound, applies the designation to 
the doctrine of our participation in the Adamic sin, (although this 
is the recognized doctrine of the Church,) and yet professes to 
feel aggrieved when that term is applied to his own doctrine, 
though the term has been applied to it directly by the Church 
theologians ever since that doctrine with its exegesis was asserted 
by Pighius, Catharinus, Slichtingius, and Crellius. We cannot, 
therefore, admit the disclaimer, greatly as it would gratify us to 
acquiesce in the wishes of Dr. Hodge. And neither can we, in 
the next place, assent to the demand recently made on behalf of 
this theory, claiming that it is entitled to the sobriquet of "the 
federal or representative system /" for it really has no alliance with 
that system as taught in Calvinistic theology, but, as we are fully 
prepared to prove, is in radical hostility to all of its distinguishing 
principles. Both Catharinus and Crellius claim, quite as strongly 
as Dr. Hodge, that it was in consequence of Adam's violation of 
the covenant {pactum) made with him that his innocent offspring 
were involved in the fearful calamities which have come upon the 
race. In regard to Catharinus, this will not be denied. And as 
to the Socinian school, we cite a passage below from Crellius, the 
most profound genius of that school, which can leave no doubt on 
the subject. 1 But can this claim of theirs entitle their theory to 
the time-honored appellation of the "federal or representative 
system"? "We say, JYo / and a thousand times No! And yet, 
though this constitutes the sole claim of Dr. Hodge's theory to be 
thus designated, those who repudiate the claim are already invid- 
iously accused of "rejecting the federal system" ! To apply the 

1 In his Paraphrase of Romans he thus gives what he regards as the sense 
of Romans v. 18 : " Quare ut comparationem superius cceptam absolvimur, et 
totius rei summam concludamus : Quemadmodum ex uxo delicto unius 
hominis, consecutum Dei judicium omnes homines damnationi subjecit, eo, 
quo supra explicuimus, pacto ; ita etiam una unius hominis justitia factum 
est, ut gratia divina, in omnes homines, qui nempe earn, ut diximus, amplec- 
tuntur, dimanaret ac vitam illius sempiternam afferet." Compare this pas- 
sage with Dr. Hodge's statement of doctrine beginning with, "Not only, how- 
ever/' etc., in Theology, Yol. I, pp. 26, 27, and in many other places. 



22 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



term thus is, therefore, a misnomer ; and Dr. Hodge must excuse 
us for affirming that it can on no account be recognized. When 
Epeus fabricated the wooden horse, Sinon was adroitly sent forth 
to the wonder-stricken Trojans to give it a name. He bestowed 
upon it a sacred appellation (Donum Minervce), through the se- 
ductive influence of which the inhabitants of the city became ' so 
infatuated as to welcome the structure, with all the desolation and 
horrors it contained, into the very heart of Troy ; and on the fol- 
lowing morning Ilium fuit announced the terrible result. 

In illustration of the question itself, I, in conclusion, here pre- 
sent a single statement of the doctrine as always entertained and 
taught by the Augustinian or Calvinistic church, and cite for this 
purpose the language of one of the great and good men who 
maintain the Calvinistic soundness of the thirty-nine articles. I 
refer to the eminently learned and gifted Archbishop Usher, who 
says : Sin imputed is " our sin in Adam ; in whom as we lived, so 
also we sinned. For in our first parents (as hath been showed) 
every one of us did commit that first sin which was the cause of 
all others; and so we all became subject to the imputation of 
Adam's fall, both for the transgression and guiltiness. Original 
sin is a sin wherewith all that naturally descend from Adam are 
defiled, even from their first conception ; infecting all the powers 
of their souls and bodies, and thereby making them drudges and 
slaves of sin. For it is the immediate effect of Adam's first sin, 
and the principal cause of all other sins." 1 This representation, 
as our readers will presently see, is coincident with that of the 
whole 'Calvinistic church. The first sin is "the sin of Adam," 
and yet "our sin in Adam;" and "every one of us did commit 
that first sin," and so "became subject to the imputation of 
Adam's fall, both for the transgression and guiltiness," — that is, 
God found the whole race already guilty when He imputed to it 
the first sin of Adam. 

We cannot be supposed "legally" to have concurred in the sin- 
ful act of our first parents without at the same time admitting an 
ethical or moral basis for the concurrence. The contrary supposi- 
tion is wholly inadmissible. And hence the Church has always 
taught that the moral corruption inducing that act was common 
alike to both Adam and his naturally begotten posterity. 

1 Sum and Substance of the Christian Religion, p. 127. 



DR. HODGE's RATIOCINATION. 



23 



§ 4. Dr. Hodge's Ratiocination on the Issue. 

And now, as to the argumentation which has been employed in 
support of this theory, Dr. Hodge admits that there must be a 
basis for the imputation of Adam's personal sin to his posterity, 
and that otherwise such imputation would be arbitrary and in- 
capable of being justified. 1 But he maintains that the basis is not 
their own subjective ill-desert, as of course he must do, claiming 
as he does that it is the imputation of Adam's strictly personal sin 
which is the procuring cause of the spiritual death and moral 
corruption of the race. He, however, professes to find that the 
basis consists of "the union, natural and representative, between 
Adam and his posterity ;" not, however, as it is taught by the 
Church theology, that this union, by connecting the race subjectively 
with the sin of Adam, constitutes thereby the ground for the im- 
putation (natura corrumpit personam), but that it constitutes that 
ground irresj^ective of any such connection, and while the race is 
entirely innocent, and free of all subjective* demerit or ill-desert. 
And on such a basis he endeavors to justify the procedure which he 
attributes to the Most High. He attempts, moreover, to support 
this view by adducing Romans v. 12-21, together with numerous 
facts (claimed by him as analogies) derived from the Scriptures, 
and from the operations of Providence in its dealings with man- 
kind. We shall defer our consideration of the passage in Romans 
until we shall have examined his statements containing the rest 
of the argument. 

He says, " Our obligation to suffer for Adam's sin, so far as that 
sin is concerned, arises solely from his being our representative, 
and not f rom any participation in its moral turpitude} And he 
cites from Stapfer the statement that " God in imputing this sin 
(Adam's) finds the whole moral person (the human race) already 
a sinner, and not merely constitutes it such ;" and on which Dr. 
Hodge thus remarks, " He says, indeed, that Adam and his race 
form one moral person, and so would Turrettin and Tuckney, and 
so would we, and yet one and all deny that there was any per- 
sonal union. The very epithet moral shows no such idea was in- 
tended. When lawyers call a corporation of a hundred men a 
legal person, we do not hear that philosophy is called in to ex- 



1 Theology, Vol. II., page 196. 2 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 171. 



24 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



plain how this can be. And there is no need of her aid to ex- 
plain how Adam and his race were one in the sense of common 
Calvinists. But he says, God finds 'this whole moral person 
already a sinner ! ' Yes, he denies antecedent and immediate 
imputation, and teaches that it is from the view and on the ground 
of inherent hereditary depravity imputation takes place. This is 
mediate imputation," etc. 1 Such confounding of antecedent and 
immediate imputation with gratuitous imputation, on the one 
hand, and of the church doctrine with the technical notion of 
mediate imputation on the other, as is evinced by these statements, 
betrays a remarkable absence of accurate knowledge on the sub- 
ject. In his theology, moreover, he reiterates on the same ground, 
the assertion, charging Stapfer with teaching mediate imputation. 2 
Thus the doctrine actually entertained by the Calvinistic Church 
from the beginning is set entirely aside by Dr. Hodge, who, in 
lieu of it, maintains that the first sin became common by being im- 
puted* and not as the Church has ever held and taught, that it vias 
common to all, and therefore imputed to all ; or, as President Ed- 
wards, in his reply to Dr. Taylor, expresses it, " The sin of the 
apostasy is not theirs because God imputes it to them, but it is 
truly and properly theirs, and on that ground God imputes it to 
them." 4 And again, " The first existing of a corrupt disposition 
is not to be looked upon as sin distinct from the participation of 
AdairCs first sin. It is, as it were, the extended pollution of that 
sin, . . or the inherence of the sin of that head of the species in 
the members, in their consent and concurrence with the head in that 
first act. But the depravity of nature remaining as an established 
principle in a child of Adam, and as exhibited in after operations, 
is a consequence and punishment of the first apostasy thus partici- 
pated, and brings new guilt." 5 It is noticeable in the connection 
that Dr. Hodge attempts no discussion of the view thus intelli- 
gibly and clearly presented, though it be the doctrine inculcated 
by the Church perpetually from the day that it was formulated by 
Augustine ; but satisfies himself, and would satisfy his readers, by 
endeavoring to fix upon it the brand of philosophical realism, 
and stigmatizing it as mediate imputation, in the offensive theo- 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 149. 2 See Vol. II., p. 207. 

3 See his Theology, Vol. II., pp. 190, 192, 196, 204, 205, 240, 253. 

4 See Edwards' Works, Vol. II., p. 559, (New York, 1830). 5 Ibid. p. 344. 



DR. HODGE's RATIOCINATION. 



25 



logical sense of that term as applied to the errors of Placseus. 
And instead of finding in the community of the sin the basis for 
the imputation, professes to find that basis solely in the represen- 
tative character of Adam, (just as Catharinus, and the Socinians, 
and Remonstrants have done,) without any reference whatever to 
the guilt of the race itself. • 

But that our readers may be able to avoid even the possibility 
•of misapprehending the views of Dr. Hodge, as advanced from the 
first, and still maintained by him, we here cite another passage in 
which they are fully presented and illustrated. He says: "To 
impute sin, therefore, ' is to lay it to the charge of any, and to deal 
with them according to its desert.' — (Oiven.) If the thing im- 
puted be antecedently ours, then there is merely a recognizing it 
as such. If it be not ours, there is necessarily an ascription of it 
to us on some ground or other, and a determination to deal with 
us according to the merit of the thing imputed. When Paul beg- 
ged Philemon to impute to him the debt or offense of Onesimus, 
he begged him to regard him as the debtor or offender, and exact 
of him whatever compensation he required. When our sins are 
said to be imputed to Christ, it is meant that He is treated as a 
.sinner on account of our sins. And when Adam's sin is said to be 
imputed to his posterity, it is intended that his sin is laid to their 
charge, and they are punished for it, or are treated as sinners on 
that account. In all such cases there must be some ground for 
imputation ; that is, for the laying of the conduct of one to the 
charge of another, and dealing with him accordingly. In the case 
of Paul, it was the voluntary assumption of the responsibility of 
Onesimus ; so it was in the case of Christ. The ground of the im- 
putation of Adam's sin to his posterity is the union between them, 
which is two-fold : a natural union, as between a father and his 
children, and the union of representation, which is the main idea 
here insisted on, — a relation admitted on all hands." 1 

These citations may suffice from the earlier writings of Dr. 
Hodge on the subject. In his late work, when treating on the 
" Representative Principle in Scripture," as involved in his doc- 
trine of the imputation of the Adamic sin, he proceeds in the. fol- 
lowing line of argumentation: "2. This representative principle 
pervades the whole Scriptures. The imputation of Adam's sin to 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, page 136. 



26 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



his posterity is not an isolated fact ;" and in illustration of which 
statement he adduces Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7 ; Jeremiah xxxii. 18,, 
and the cases of Esau, Moab, and Ammon, with their descendants,,, 
and of Dathan, Abiram, and Achan, with their families; and 
refers also to other similar facts everywhere occurrent in the 
Bible, as well as to others mentioned in profane history. And 
then, by way of anticipating what " may be said, that this is not to 
be referred to the justice of God, but to the undesigned working 
of a general law, which, in despite of incidental evil, is on the 
whole beneficent," he adds, "The difficulty on that assumption,, 
instead of being lessened, is only increased. On either theory the 
nature and degree of suffering are the same. The only difference 
relates to the question, Why they suffer for offenses of which they 
are not personally guilty ? The Bible says these sufferings are ju- 
dicial ; they are inflicted as punishment in support of law 

The assumption that one man cannot righteously, under the gov- 
ernment of God, be punished for the sins of another, is not only 
contrary, as we have seen, to the express declarations of the Scrip- 
tures, and to the administration of the Divine government from 
the beginning, but it is subversive of the doctrine of atonement 

and justification There is a logical connection, therefore,. 

between the denial of the imputation of Adam's sin, and the de- 
nial of the scriptural doctrines of atonement and justification.. 
The objections urged against the former bear equally against the- 
latter doctrines ; and it is a matter of history that . those who re- 
ject the one, reject also the other." 1 

The imputation which Dr. Hodge throughout all these passages 
thus labors to illustrate and establish is, as our readers have doubt- 
less perceived, gratuitous imputation. And yet, although he has 
cited the cases, he does not believe that Philemon could have justly 
imputed the debt of Onesimus to Paul gratuitously, or that our 
sins were gratuitously imputed to our adorable Redeemer ; that is,, 
that in either case there could have been a just imputation without 
the concurrence of him who was the subject of it. In what way,, 
then, can such cases either illustrate or confirm the theory of the 
gratuitous imputation of sin ? And of what conceivable avail can 

1 Theology, Vol. II., pp. 198-202. The statement in the last two sentences, 
of this citation, Dr. Hodge elsewhere, and very inaccurately, attributes to De 
Moor, as will be shown in § 15 of the sequel. 



DR. HODGE S RATIOCINATION. 



27 



they be to his argument, except to refute it or to expose its utter 
fallacy ? Bat not to dwell upon this, let us proceed to consider 
briefly this line of labored ratiocination ; for the question simply is, 
whether sin may be gratuitously imputed or charged upon the 
guiltless \ 

The first important point demanding attention is the marked 
endeavor of Dr. Hodge to illustrate and confirm, and so identify, 
his theory of the imputation of Adam's personal sin to a subjec- 
tively innocent posterity (for such he claims them to be), with the 
imputation of a parent's sin to an already subjectively guilty off- 
spring, as is, the fact in all the cases alleged by him as confirma- 
tory and illustrative of his position and argument. For he claims 
that the doctrine of imputation may be impeached alike in both 
cases, if it be liable to impeachment in the former. He assumes 
this without any attempt to establish it, fundamental as is the 
difference between the instance of Adam and his offspring and the 
other instances alleged, and so rests the whole of his ratiocination 
upon a mere petitio principii. But let us view the procedure in 
the light of a brief illustration. 

If in relation to the administration of some human government 
it were claimed that because the ruler had the conceded right, in 
regard to sundry criminals already under sentence of death, to 
make a summary disposal of them by associating them in the pun- 
ishment to which other criminals had been consigned (i. <?., by ex- 
ecuting them all together), and which punishment in no way ex- 
ceeded their actual desert, he therefore likewise possessed the pre- 
rogative to condemn and execute the guiltless, and that the two 
things are so far analogous, that to question his right to do the 
latter would involve the denial of his conceded right to do the 
former, — what would be either the moral or logical value of such 
an argument, however boldly and emphatically it might be insisted 
on ? — and what weight or intelligence could be accredited to the 
opinions of those who should insist on the validity of such a con- 
clusion ? And does the actual case in the matter before us (so far 
as the real point is concerned) differ in any essential particular 
from that of the case supposed for illustration 2 Here is an exist- 
ing race, — guilty, polluted, and already under sentence of death, — 
and God, without transcending their actual desert, includes por- 
tions of it in the punishment which is inflicted upon other portions 



28 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



on some specific occasion. And this procedure, says Dr. Hodge, 
is sufficient to illustrate and confirm the allegation that God claims 
and exercises the prerogative to condemn also the guiltless, and to 
treat them in a similar manner ! 

If Dr. Hodge can really regard these cases as parallel, we shall 
not object to his reasoning thus from the one to the other, nor are 
we unwilling that his argument should be accepted as valid by any 
who may be able to discover its force and relevancy. But we do 
object to his efforts to represent such views as the doctrine of the 
Church or of the word of God. The Reformed divines could, and 
did with entire propriety, adduce the cases of Esau, Dathan, Achan, 
etc., with their seed, in illustration and confirmation of the doctrine 
of the imputation of the Adamic sin; for, according to that doc- 
trine, the race was not (as Dr. Hodge would have it) subjectively 
innocent anterior to the original imputation, but subjectively guilty 
by participation of the first offense, which was, therefore, imputed 
to them. But Dr. Hodge can in no legitimate sense allege those 
cases in support of his view, that the race was guiltless when the 
imputation was made, and was constituted guilty through the im- 
putation itself. 

This, however, singular as it may appear, is not the main feature 
of logical incongruity in this effort to sustain his theory. It will 
be observed from the foregoing citations that, in the one case, 
to-wit : that of Adam and his seed, Dr. Hodge finds both a natural 
and federal relation actually existing, and which he properly de- 
nominates a federal and- natural u?iion of Adam with his posterity. 
And thus far his finding is certainly accurate. But inaccurately, 
and upon the ground of this union alone, he assumes to justify the 
gratuitous imputation of guilt and punishment to the posterity of 
Adam on account of his peccatum alienum, and claims, moreover, 
that this relation furnishes just and righteous ground for such im- 
putation. In the other cases, however, which he alleges as con- 
firmatory of his argument, to-wit : those specified in Exodus xxxiv. 
6, 7, and Jeremiah xxxii. 18, as well as the cases of Korah, Achan, 
etc., all of which he regards as sufficiently analogous to warrant 
his reasoning from the one to the other, he finds existing the 
natural relation alone — that of parent and his descendants. And 
yet, solely on the ground of this natural 'relation, he would justify 
the imputation and punishment in these cases. He has repeatedly 



DR. HODGE'S RATIOCINATION. 



29 



averred, as we shall presently see, that the difference between the 
two, as furnishing ground for imputation, is vital and fundamental. 
And yet, notwithstanding this irreconcilable difference, he here, 
in the extremity of his theory, is compelled to regard the cases as 
so intrinsically alike that (as he endeavors to show) the justice of 
God may impute sin, pronounce sentence, and then punish, as well 
on the ground of the natural relation as on the ground of the 
natural and federal conjoined; and that in either case, as well on 
the one ground as on the other, notwithstanding this fundamental 
heterogeneity, the requirements of justice may be exacted, and the 
divine law be sustained in its requirements and fully vindicated in 
all its demands! Such is the representation here exhibited, and 
by which the gratuitous imputation of sin is to be demonstrated. 
But if the facts be so, on what ground is it to be supposed that 
divine justice, as Dr. Hodge so emphatically alleges, required, as 
indispensable to a just imputation, that a moral or federal relation, 
along with the natural, should exist as the basis of its requirements, 
and of the penalty it inflicted in the one case {i. e., that of Adam 
and his seed), while in the other cases claimed by him as analogous 
and confirmatory of this statement, it makes no such requirements, 
but, on the contrary, regards the natural relation alone as a wholly 
sufficient basis for these exactions ? Can any legitimate conclusion 
in favor of the gratuitous imputation of sin be deduced from such 
an argument ? 

And then still further. Even this is not the most incongruous 
element in the foregoing attempt to assimilate that dogma with 
Augustinian theology ; for in regard to Adam and his posterity 
Dr. Hodge finds the federal relation alone the ground of the 
judgment unto condemnation which passed upon the race. In 
referring to the .Larger Catechism, (Question 22,) he says : " If 
English be any longer English, this means that it was our repre- 
sentative — as a public person we sinned in him — in virtue of a 
union resulting from a covenant or contract. Let it be noted that 
this is the only union here mentioned. The bond arising from 
our natural relation to him as our parent is not even referred to. 
It is neglected because of its secondary importance, representation 
being the main ground of imputation ; so that when representation 
ceases imputation ceases, although the natural bond continues." 1 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 187. 



so 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Again: "According to this view of the subject, the ground of the 
imputation of Adam's sin is the federal union between him and 
his posterity, in such a sense that it would not have been imputed 
had he not been constituted their representative. It is imputed to 
them, not because it was, antecedently to that imputation and irre- 
spective of the covenant on which the imputation is founded, 
already theirs, but because they were appointed to stand their 
probation in him." 1 

E~ow, if this be so, then we are logically brought to the con- 
clusion that the justice of God vindicates itself, and so sustains the 
divine law and government, on grounds which are not only hete- 
rogeneous, but really subversive of each other, according to Dr. 
Hodge's often-repeated affirmation. In the one case, it vindicates 
itself and sustains the government on the ground of the federal 
relation, as that relation is (says Dr. Hodge) the sole ground of 
imputation ; and in the other and analogous cases, (as Dr. Hodge's 
argument represents them to be,) it vindicates itself in the same 
demands, and upholds the same government, on the grounds of 
the natural relation alone. And furthermore, in the former case, 
(i. 6., that of Adam and his seed,) the "sin would not have been 
imputed" and " there could have been no imputation on the ground 
of the natural relation " ; yet in the latter cases adduced for illus- 
tration and confirmation of the truth of this representation the 
natural relation is the sole ground of the imputation ! 

Such, then, is the argument by which Dr. Hodge would demon- 
strate that his theory is an integral part of Calvinistic theology, 
and so justify his violent proscription of his brethren who repu- 
diate that theory. And thus, by confounding gratuitous with 
immediate and antecedent imputation, and by persisting in the 
unauthorized assumption that the gratuitous imputation of sin 
was taught by the Reformed church, and that, consequently, what 
the Reformers with reason urged in support of their doctrine, 
might also be alleged by him in support of his theory, Dr. Hodge 
has been led into these mortifying and fatal inconsistencies and 
contradictions. The instances alleged, as we have already stated, 
are all of them applicable for illustration and confirmation of the 
doctrine entertained by the Protestant church, to- wit : that the 
race, and not Adam only, had already transgressed when the 
1 Princeton Review for 1860, p. 340. 



DE. HODGE 's RATIO CDs ATIOX. 



31 



imputation was made; while, on the contrary, every one of them 
furnishes a direct and unanswerable argument against the theory 
which Dr. Hodge would incorporate with the theology of the 
Church. And it is, moreover, a consideration of the deepest in- 
terest in the connection, as illustrating the grievous nature of this 
departure from sound doctrine, that TTallaeus, the celebrated 
Leyden divine, in his Reply to the assault upon ATolinaeu's "Ana- 
tomy of Arminianisrn by Corvinus, finds the Remonstrant theo- 
logue (who had adopted the Socinian view of imputation') in pre- 
cisely the same predicament with this of Dr. Hodge; on the very 
same subject, and in Chapter IX. (Works, Vol. II., folio) thoroughly 
exposes it. The following, which we present in his own language, 
will amply suffice for illustration: "Ex puro Dei arbitrio hujus 
peccati imputationem in posteros derivari, nescio quo pacto dicant 
Iiemonstrantes. qui alibi, ut superius visum, non eo aliquid esse 
justum dicendum esse eontendunt, qnia id Deus velit, sed ideo 
aliquid velle, quia id in se justum est: nisi fortassis intelliyant 
hcinc imputationem rei>i per se esse indifferentem, et nec justitice nee 
in justitio3 in se hah ere rationem, sed tan turn ex Dei arbitrio / . . . 
nec in quern alium finem id ab iis dieatur, video, nisi ut pcenas 
illas qua? ex hoc reatu humane generi ineumbunt quantum possunt 
elevent, at cum Vorstio nullam necessitatem satisfactions Christi 
quam arbitrariam inferant. Si alia est eorum mens, explicent se 
clarius, et probent quod dicunt : quia assertiones nuda? nullius 
nobis sunt ponderis." (Pp. 157, 158.) 

The transcendent importance of the subject before us in its 
clear and obvious relations to sound theology, and to the very 
foundation of ethics, and to the glory of God and the honor of 
His kingdom (all of which will fully appear in the sequel), de- 
mands this rigid scrutiny of the ratiocination by which Dr. Hodo-e 
would inculcate his theory upon the Church as her recognized 
doctrine, and sustain his proscriptive assaults upon his brethren 
who discard these speculations. And we appeal with confidence 
to any competent mind unwarped by prejudice to decide, whether 
such attempts at argument can seriously be otherwise regarded 
' than as a surprisingly inadequate treatment of a most vital and 
sacred subject. 

And then, moreover, such a style of representation as the fore- 
going must, of course (in the view of him who emplovs it), rest 



32 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



upon some adequate basis involving or sustaining it. Does Dr. 
Hodge mean, then, that essential justice, after all, may indif- 
ferently regard either of the relations referred to as adequate 
ground for inflicting the fearful xpt/£a si? xardxpt/xa^ Can he really 
affirm such an idea, and thus deliberately contradict all his pre- 
vious utterances on the subject ? And likewise caricature in such 
style the holy and righteous nature, and the moral government of 
God, by representing that he may, on grounds not only hetero- 
geneous and conflicting, but really subversive of each other, inflict 
the most dreadful punishments upon the innocent ? Or would he 
with Socinus, and several of the Supralapsarian school, deny that 
essential justice is one of the Divine perfections? This would, of 
course, resolve the query ; but in so doing he must at the same 
time retract what he has in his theology just affirmed to the con- 
trary. But we shall not dwell upon the point. His forecited 
ratiocination may conduct the mind logically to either of these 
inferences; and our readers will decide for themselves as to the 
weight to which such ratiocination is entitled. 

That the posterity of Adam were condemned for his sin alone, 
or the children of Dathan, Achan, and others, for their parents' 
sin alone, — that is, without regard to their own existing depravity,, 
as the argument and theory of Dr. Hodge necessarily affirm, — is not 
only a wholly baseless assumption, but is condemned alike by the 
word of God, and by the convictions of our moral nature. Our 
participation of Adam's offense is directly affirmed in the inspired 
announcement that all sinned, and that they were, in consequence, 
constituted sinners, or exhibited in their real character as such. 
And this is affirmed to be the reason why death, or the judgment 
unto condemnation passed upon all. We repeat, that we know 
nothing as to the mode or manner of this participation. Nor is 
such knowledge at all needed in order to our full confidence in the 
truth of the Divine averment. The posterity of Adam were 
punished because they all alike were guilty with their parents; 
though in what maimer the ethical appropriation of that guilt 
actuallv occurred we know not ; and neither do we believe how it 
occurred, since the how is nowhere revealed. The fact that we 
all sinned in the first sin is of pure revelation : and as such we re- 
verentially receive it. Baier, (a theologian of rare accomplish- 
ments and remarkable accuracy, and one who still retains his emi- 



DR. HODGE 5 RATIOCINATION. 



33 



nence amongst the evangelical divines of Europe,) has said, ad- 
mirably to the point : " Ut an tern snbtilius disputatur ; quo rnodo 
Deus lapsum Protoplastorum posteris ipsorum, nondum existen- 
tibus, itskimputare potuerit; ut propterea etiam ipsos justitia orig- 
inali destitutos et peccatores nasci oporteret? Non opus est, nec 
fortasse consultum. Sufficit enim to 6n esse revelatum ; etsi -6 -d>? 
ignoretur." 1 In other words, the fact stated is to be received sim- 
ply as a fact revealed by the Holy Spirit; and such in every age 
has been the position of the Augustinian Church. 

I may be permitted to say, in conclusion, that my sole aim 
in this work (as in my former essay,) is to place the doctrine of 
imputation and original sin in its true position in the relation 
which it fundamentally sustains to the Church theology and the 
whole system of salvation as revealed, for in both these aspects the 
theory of Dr. Hodge has brought it into deadly peril. The doc- 
trine itself, that we all sinned in the first sin, is of pure revelation, 
and as such neither our philosophy, nor our notions of the "ab- 
surd'' and " impossible/' can have any thing to do with it. The 
Holy Spirit does not teach absurdities, nor do they believe absur- 
dities who believe what He teaches. The question, therefore, is, 
Has God plainly and clearly announced that the posterity of Adam 
became veritable sinners in the fall? And has the Church re- 
ceived and taught this doctrine? These inquiries present the 
point at issue, and in this tractate we design to place fairly and 
truly in possession of our readers the great and important facts 
which bear to that issue a determining relation. 

It is certainly to be contemplated with emotions of humiliation 
and regret, that a fundamental difference on this vital doctrine 
should now exist in our communion. But they who depart essen- 
tially from the principles entertained and cherished by the Church 
from the beginning are alone responsible for this state of things, 
and should not complain that such departure calls for a rigid in- 
vestigation of its grounds — an investigation, moreover, which no 
abortive attempts at ridicule, or proscription, or calumny, shall 
avail to hinder. " That those should shrink from the investiga- 
tion of such topics who, by receiving their theology from the 
hands of their superiors in a mass, have already relinquished the 

Compendium Theol. Positive (editis tertia), page 510, Tenae, 1G94. 
3 



34 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



liberty of thinking for themselves, is no more than might be well 
expected." 1 

§ 5. Dr. Hodge's Position in Relation to the Issue. 

It is now in place to call special attention to the position as- 
sumed by Dr. Hodge in relation to the issue itself, that so the great 
central point of this discussion may be clearly before our readers 
during the prosecution of our inquiry. We design, however, not 
to anticipate the theme of a later section of the argument, (which 
relates, as the reader will see, to another aspect of the question,) 
but merely to develop the course of Dr. Hodge in regard to the 
main issue itself. 

The question which presents the issue is, as we have shown in 
the preceding sections, perfectly plain and simple in its terms and 
statement. But in illustration we shall here cite part of a para- 
graph from our former essay, in which we endeavored to call the 
serious attention of Dr. Hodge to the precise point involved in 
the inquiry, and of which he really seemed to have formed no ad- 
equate conception ; but which, if we may form an estimate from 
his Revised Commentary on Romans, published subsequently, pro- 
duced upon him no effect other than to induce a determination, 
through ridicule and denunciation, or any other means which might 
be deemed available, to put an end to the discussion. 

The passage to which we refer is the following: " And now, in 
view of the foregoing speculation of Dr. Hodge and others, let it 
be considered that an act of God imputing to us a personal sin of 
Adam can only be, in its own nature, outward and forensic to 
us ; and that no such act of God can in its own nature make us 
inwardly depraved. Something more is requisite; for otherwise 
the imputation of our sins to Christ would have made Him in- 
wardly corrupt, and the imputation of His righteousness to us 
would make us inwardly holy ; neither of which is true, or even 
possible. On the other hand, our inward natural pollution would 
not necessarily involve and draw after it, or necessarily presuppose, 
an imputation, outward and forensic as to us, of the guilt of any 
personal sin of Adam. In the one case and in the other, the facts 
being absolute and synchronous and inseparable, (as has been so 
fully illustrated throughout this discussion,) the headship of Adam, 

1 Robert Hall, in reply to Kinghorn, (Works, Vol. I., page 493). 



dr. hodge's position. 35 

both natural and federal, and the headship of Christ, both super- 
natural and federal, are always implied. Considered as of one 
nature with Adam, and being his posterity, there is no difficulty 
in seeing that we sinned in him and fell with him ; considered as 
being different persons from him, and yet his descendants and of 
his nature, there is no difficulty in seeing that he might be our 
federal head. If Dr. Hodge should still insist that the idea of 
oneness of nature and plurality of persons in the human race, puts 
the question of the headship and the effects upon us of his fall, in 
a position that renders the idea of our sinning in him incompre- 
hensible, except it mean that we sinned in him only representa- 
tively, (for sinning representatively and sinning only representa- 
tively are not the same,) we respectfully request him to bear in 
mind that the doctrine of oneness of nature and plurality of per- 
sons in the Godhead is the very foundation of all that is explicable 
in the revealed* mode of salvation, and of the efficacy of it all as 
revealed; and so, too, the announcement involving an equally in- 
comprehensible principle of oneness and plurality is the very foun- 
dation of all that is explicable in all that is revealed to us of the 
doctrine of original sin. And why, then, should any Christian 
man make the incomprehensibleness of this latter announcement 
a reason for disregarding and rejecting it, and yet aver that the 
incomprehensibleness of the former furnishes no ground for re- 
jecting that, — while at the same time he concedes that each 
announcement rests alike upon the revealed testimony of God ? 
Adam and his race have the same nature and oneness of nature, 
but many persons; and God is One, and He is Three, and the 
three persons of the Godhead have one and the same nature; and 
these are facts of revelation, and not the discoveries of philosophy. 1 

1 This illustration has been adopted by Dr. Schaff, and others of our emi- 
nent divines, as directly in point. It is plain to the most moderate capacity, 
and not easily misunderstood. A writer, however, in the Princeton Review, 
for April, 1870, finding the impression it had made, and was still making, 
against his mistaken representations of the Church theology, undertakes to 
set it aside by the following summary procedure: "Nor is the case relieved 
by the illustration from the Trinity, if it were just, the Trinity ceases to be 
a mystery. The unity of essence and plurality of persons is precisely that 
which exists among men, and there is no more that is incomprehensible in it 
than in the plurality of human persons having a common humanity. Is this 
all the mystery of the Trinity ? What is this common humanity ? Is it one 



36 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



In the latter case, moreover, we are lost if our salvation be not 
explicable consistently, not only with the mode of God's being, 
but with the mode still farther complicated (if we may so speak) 
by the Second Person of the Godhead taking our nature, and then 
renewing us in His own nature; thus making our union with Him 
mean that we share a common nature with Him in a two-fold 
way. And now, with all the seriousness which a theme so deeply 
serious is calculated to awaken, let me ask, Can anything be more 
idle, after accepting these truths as the basis of salvation, than to 
quibble about the pretended difficulties of our being in Adam y 
sinning with him and falling with him, because we are different 
persons from him ? Can there possibly be any more difficulty in 
believing the testimony of God in the one case than in the other? 
Was not the Son of God a different person from the Father, and 
also a different person from us, and yet is He not of one nature / 
with both ? Indeed, if it be not so, our whole race is lost and un- 
done for ever." 1 

These remarks had reference mainly to Dr. Hodge's then recent 
allegations in the Princeton Review? and which, though we shall 
have occasion in the sequel to call attention to them, we here cite. 
He says: "That we acted thousands of years before ice existed, is 
as monstrous a proposition as ever was framed. The doctrine of 
preexistence, as held by Origen, revived in our day by Dr. Muller 
and others, and by Dr. Edward Beecher in this country, is, com- 
pared to that proposition, clear sunshine. Apostasy, as we are 
requested carefully to consider, 6 is an act,' it is i a voluntary act,' 
it is an act of '^//-determination,' and it is affirmed to be our act. 
That is, we performed a personal act, — that is, a voluntary act, 
an act of self-determination, before that self had any existence. 
There is no definition of a personal act more precise and generally 

substance numerically? Or is it not, rather, resembling qualities depending 
on a common origin?" (Page 251.) We should feel that we were trifling 
with the intelligence of our readers were we to enter upon an exposure of this 
unworthy quibbling, which certainly exhibits either a wanton evasion of the 
point so fully illustrated, or an incompetency to apprehend it intelligently. 
In note (B.) of the Appendix we have followed out with much care and labor 
the thought presented in the text. 

1 See Danville Review for 1862, pp. 566-568. 

2 For 1860, pp. 356-359, in his review of Dr. Baird's work entitled EloJiim 
Revealed. 



DR. HODGE'S POSITION. 



37 



•adopted than an 'act of voluntary self-determination.' Such was 
apostasy in Adam, and if we performed that act, then we were in 
him, not by community of nature merely, but personally ; for we 
.are said to have done what nature as nature cannot do, — what of 
necessity implies personality. Apostasy being an act of self- 
determination, it can be predicated only of persons; and if the 
.apostasy of Adam can be predicated of us, then we existed as 
persons thousands of years before we existed at all. If any man 
-says he believes this, then, as we think, he deceives himself, and 
does not understand what he says." 

It is not a little instructive to observe, in view of this tirade, 
that when Dr. Hodge finds it necessary in his Theology 1 to attempt 
the vindication of the Divine Being against the charge of the au- 
thorship of sin in the race, he there expresses his belief in that 
vjhich he here affirms no man can believe. He, in that connection, 
finds himself under the necessity of abandoning for the time being 
his gratuitous imputation scheme, and, instead of asserting, as he 
does in the above quotation, that apostasy is the result of God's aban- 
doning the posterity of Adam, alleges that He abandoned them 
because they vjere already apostate. And if already apostate, they 
had, of course, apostatized previous to the sentence of abandon- 
ment. Such is the style in which the Professor feels at liberty 
to inculcate Calvinistic theology. But the full consideration of it 
will come up in a future section. 

In the revised edition of his Commentary on Romans, issued, as 
above stated, soon after the appearance of my essay in the Dan- 
ville Review, the Doctor makes no direct allusion to that essay, 
Ibut rises to a still higher tone of denunciation and sarcasm, as 
.stated above. He denounces the principle presented and illus- 
trated in the foregoing extract from that essay as Pantheistic non- 
sense, "which does not rise even to the dignity of a contradiction, 
.and has no meaning at all," and adds, "It is a monstrous evil to 
make the Bible contradict the common sense and common con- 
sciousness of men." 2 All of which is, moreover, substantially re- 
peated or sustained in his Theology. 3 And thus, instead of essay- 
ing in a frank and scholarly manner to meet and solve the inquiry 
whether the instance in question (Romans v. 12 — u all sinned") 

1 See Vol. II., p. 253, and in other places. 

2 See p. 226. 3 See Vol. II., pp* 190, 192, 216, 220-227. 



38 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



does not fairly come under the same category with those other an- 
nouncements of inexplicable facts pertaining to the two natures of 
Christ and the unity and distinct personality of the divine nature,, 
and is therefore to be received simply as a fact without explana- 
tion, or rather as itself constituting an explanatory principle, com- 
municated by the Spirit of truth to aid our inquiries, he prefers 
this unworthy course of sarcasm and denunciation ; and so assumes 
the position of thus treating, and in relation to a fundamental 
truth, the cherished and settled convictions of the Church of God 
from the days of Augustine until the present hour. 

In the things of faith, let our thoughts be the thoughts of God,, 
and not our own imaginings. This is the safe rule, and it is always 
perilous to set it aside. When Socinus was denouncing the doc- 
trine of the Trinity, and raving against the doctrine of original 
sin as entertained by the Church as preposterous and impossible, 
Beza quietly remarked, " Qui sequitur Deum emendate sane loqui- 
tur" — a golden sentence, which no herald of the cross should per- 
mit himself ever to lose sight of. And in this connection it is 
certainly a most impressive reflection that Socinus and his school 
(as will fully appear in the sequel) present the same array of argu- 
ment, denunciation and ridicule against the doctrine of original sin 
as received and taught by the Reformed Church as is thus presented 
by the Professor at Princeton. They make the same points of ex- 
ception, and urge them in the same style as he in the preceding 
citations and in innumerable other passages — the explanation of 
which startling fact will fully appear when we come to treat of 
the exposition which he offers of Romans v. 12-21. 

I may repeat, also, in conclusion, that this discussion owes not 
its origin to me. He only is responsible for it who, by unauthor- 
ized endeavors to introduce fundamental changes into our received 
theology, has imperilled the well-being and harmony of the Church. 
In my former essay I adverted to this, and established, as I think, 
beyond successful contradiction, the fact that Dr. Hodge's specu- 
lations were logically leading to such a result, but at the same 
time intimated in the kindest manner that he had fallen into mis- 
takes which he would certainly correct. Still later, Dr. S chaff, in 
the American edition of " Lange on Romans," (page 194), sug- 
gested that his hostility to the realistic Augustinian view of the 
doctrine appears to proceed " from a misunderstanding." But Dr- 



DR. HODGE'S POSITION". 



39 



Hodge repudiates all such suppositions, and in his Theology re- 
iterates and endeavors to confirm his previous and unauthorized 
assumptions. The accusation, therefore, by sundry individuals, 
who plainly evince neither the adequate knowledge nor the capacity 
to appreciate the subject, charging the writer as aiming to disturb 
the peace of our denomination simply because he cannot acquiesce 
in what he claims to have shown to be a fundamental departure 
from our recognized theology, should be shrunk from with shud- 
dering recoil by every one who would venture to allege it in a 
Protestant community. 1 And neither should any one who would 
be regarded as possessed of either intelligence or piety avail him- 
self of such a plea by such individuals in justification, or even ex- 
tenuation, of a refusal to respond to exceptions and arguments 
which he himself has invited. Nor is it of any avail to say that 
Dr. Hodge does not admit the departure. For the same was 
pleaded likewise by Arius and Sabellius, and by others without 
number, whose errors have more or less in every age imperilled 
the souls of men. Those gentlemen, however, were bound, in con- 
sideration of the earnest protests of their brethren, fairly to meet 
the statements upon which the charge of departure had been predi- 

- cated, and to reconcile their professed adherence to the doctrine of 
the Church, with those exceptions, so far at least as to show, if 
this could be done, that the charge was groundless, and not attempt 
to supersede the discussion or to satisfy inquiry by a bold reitera- 

, tion of previous utterances. And if this could not be done, their 
duty in the premises was plain. In the case of Dr. Hodge the 
instance is still more striking; for not only did the author of the 
essay entertain this conviction, but many of the ablest theologians 
then living expressed their concurrence in the strength and validity 
of the reasons alleged ; and therefore the groundless and imperti- 

1 "There is an extreme of caution as reprehensible and hurtful as the ex- 
treme of rashness. Till human opinions become infallible, the practices which 
grow out of them cannot be always right. ... At no time, and upon 
no pretence, must it be allowed to usurp the right of controlling conscience in 
matters of scriptural principle, nor to exert the pestilent prerogative of abetting 
the cause of error by arresting the progress of inquiry after truth. Unless we 
accede to this proposition, the rock is swept away from under our feet. The 
doctrine of Reformation is the worst of heresies, and every attempt to enforce 
it a profligate insurrection against human peace." — Plea for Sacramental 
Communion, by Dr. John M. Mason, pp. 4, 5, (New York, 1816.) 



40 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



nent accusation of disturbing the peace of the Church can furnish 
neither a justification for persistence in error, on the one hand, nor 
on the other hand the slightest reason for backwardness in the 
sacred duty of defending the truth. 

Wallseus, in his work already referred to, adverting to a some- 
what similar condition of affairs in his day, which, as all are aware, 
resulted in endowing with new life several of the most pernicious 
errors of the Pelagian scheme, remarks: "As hectic diseases are 
the more dangerous because they are not perceived until by their 
prevalency in the system they have brought the life itself into 
jeopardy ; so those errors are most to be dreaded which steal 
secretly into the Church, and never exhibit their actual presence 
until they have brought into peril her well-being itself." Many 
examples in illustration can be adduced from the ecclesiology of 
the past ; though few, as we conceive, can be found more alarming 
than the instance now under consideration. This representation is 
not lightly made. And if we fail to sustain and justify it by even 
a superabundance of pertinent proof, we are willing that the odious 
appellation of troubler of the Church should rest upon our memory. 
If, however, the proof be furnished, then the appellation must rest 
where, in that case, it will rightfully belong. 

§ 6. Antecedent or Immediate Imputation is never, in the Re- 
formed Theology, Confounded with Gratuitous Imputation. 

When Turrettin and the old divines allege, as they very often 
.do, that the inherent sin or hereditary corruption of our race can- 
not be reconciled to the justice of God without the admission of 
imputed sm," they never mean by imputation a merely forensic 
putation; nor by imputed sin, the merely personal sin, or peccatum 
alienum of Adam, as Dr. Hodge always does; but the immediate 
imputation of the first sin, which they invariably define to be 
Adam's sin and our ovm sin in and with him ; that is, our mutual 
participation of the first offense. And hence they teach that the 
guilt and corruption under which we come into the world would 
be irreconcilable with the justice of God unless this mutually par- 
ticipated sin had been, through a just and righteous imputation, its 
procuring cause. In my former essay, through misplaced reliance 
on the peremptory asseverations of Dr. Hodge, that Turrettin some- 
where (though he never mentions precisely where) had asserted 



ANTECEDENT AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



41 



the gratuitous imputation of sin, I was led into a hypothetical 
•concession that it might, perhaps, be even so. A more thorough 
examination, however, has shown the statement to be wholly with- 
out foundation ; and the concession therefore is withdrawn. Those 
divines, in referring to the transgression of our first parents, speak 
of it indifferently, as "Adam's sin," " the sin of our first parents," 
" the first sin," and the like (which phraseology will be the sub- 
ject of a future section) ; but when they allude to it as the pro- 
curing cause of the existing corruption of our nature, they never 
speak of it as Adam's merely personal sin ; and never designate it, as 
Dr. Hodge always does, apeccatum alienum ; nor ever assert that it 
was gratuitously imputed. 

Another point which, in this connection, is of no little impor- 
tance, on account both of its intrinsic relation to the subject itself 
and of Dr. Hodge's strange representations in regard to it, is, those 
divines never, in this connection, employ r eat us (a word which 
they very frequently use) to signify a mere liability to arrest, or 
a mere exposure to suffering or penalty ; 1 but always in any such 
connection employ it to signify exposure to punishment, indebtedness 
to justice, liability to arrest, for sin, criminality, actual ill-desert, 2 
(as with our English word guilt,) using the term interchangeably 
with culpa, crimen, peccatum, and the like. Hence they employ 
interchangeably the phrases, imputatio culpce, reatus, criminis, 
peccati Adami ; and apply alike and indifferently all these terms 
in reference to our participation with Adam in the first sin. 

To any one at all conversant with the subject it would be quite 
superfluous to illustrate or confirm this representation by examples. 
I add, however, an instance or two in the margin, from which it 

1 See Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 176-186. So also Dr. Hodge, in 
Theology, Vol. II., p. 189, and in many other places. 

2 Reatus has only a late classical usage, Messala having invented the term 
•about the commencement of the Christian era. (Observe what Quintilian says 
in regard to it, Instit. lib. 8, cap. 3.) The Roman jurists employ the word as 
"the equivalent of crimen, (a fault exposing to punishment,) though in its ori- 
ginal import it seems to have denoted the state or external condition of one 
■who was reus (charged with criminality) anterior to trial, or to a legal con- 
demnation or acquittal; and then, still later, to denote the state of such as had 
been actually arrested and committed to custody in order to be tried. The 
-early Christian writers, as Prudentius, employ it to designate the culpas, or 
<crimina, of which all men are guilty before Grod. 



42 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



may be at once perceived that in the old Calvinistic usage of reatus,. 
culpa, and the like, no such distinctions are observed as is pre- 
tended by Dr. Hodge. 1 

The English word guilt expresses precisely the sense attached 
to reatus by the Reformed divines, in verification of which we 
need only cite the following-named lexicographers, who, having 
thoroughly traced out its usage in our tongue, present the sub- 
joined definitions : Johnson says, " Guilt, 1, The state of a man 
justly charged with a crime; the contrary of innocence ; 2, A 
crime ; an offense." Richardson cites approvingly the following 
ancient etymology : " Guilt is ge-wlg-led, gulled, guiVd, guilt ; the 
past participle of ge-wiglian ; and to find guilt in any one is to 
find that he has been guiled, or, as we now say, beguiled ; as 
wicked means vrltched or bewitched. To jironounce guilt is to pro- 
nounce wickedP Worcester, in perhaps the best of all English 
dictionaries, defines it, "1, The state of being guilty, or of having 
violated a lavj, knowing it to be such; criminality ; guiltiness ; 
criminousness ; 2, A crime, an offense, misdeed, delinquency." 

Such, then, is the meaning of reatus, and such the mode of its 
application in the matter before us ; a term, the signification of 
which Dr. Hodge has wholly misconceived through his endeavors 
to give currency to the theory of the gratuitous imputation of sim 
That theory obliges its supporters, from Catharinus to Dr. Hodge, 
to apply the term in a sense in which it neither is nor could be ap- 
plied by the Reformed divines in stating and defending the doctrine 
of antecedent and immediate imputation. They all entertain th& 
latter doctrine, while they all wholly repudiate his theory. 

The error of Dr. Hodge, which, both in his earlier writings and 
in his late work, he endeavors to establish, has, therefore, really 
nothing to support it. And the following, from the latter, is alL 
that need be here further referred to. He says that the distinction 

1 Culpa and reatus are employed interchangeably by Ursinus in his Explic. 
Cat. ad Quaest. 7, pp. 39-44, and by Filenus, Syntag. Fripart. Theologiaj, 
pp. 87, 88, 352. Beza likewise, in passages to be hereafter cited, says : "Culpa 
promanans ex eo quod omnes peccavimus," etc. " Corruptio quae est poena 
istius culpa?." De Moor likewise, (III., p. 255,) " Imputatio justitiae Christi 
et culpce Adami pari passu ambulant," etc. — a passage which Dr. Hodge cites- 
(Theol. Vol. II., p. 207), though totally misapprehending the meaning of the 
words, as is shown in our § 15, infra, near the beginning. 



ANTECEDENT AND GRATUITOUS TUPUTATIOX. 



13 



between i; criminality, demerit, and blameworthiness," and " obli- 
gation to suffer the punishment due to an offense, theologians are 
accustomed to express by the terms reatits culpce, and reatus pctnce. 
Culpa is (Strafwiirdiger Zustand) blameworthiness ; and reatus 
culpcs is guilt in the form of ill-desert. Whereas the reatus poence 
is the debt we owe to justice.*' 1 This most absurd representation 
is affirmed with a view of laying a historico-theological basis for 
the theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin. But the statement, 
so far as relates to the recognized theologians of the Protestant 
Church, is so very inaccurate as to be fabulous, for they entertain 
no such notions as Dr. Hodge here affirms ; and a very slight in- 
spection of the theology of the Calvinistic church will evince that 
her theologians disallow them utterly. Dr. Hodge should have 
stated what " theologians are accustomed to express " the dogma he 
here advances. But since he has not regarded this as necessary, 
Turrettin shall do it for him, and inform our readers how the doc- 
trine is regarded by the Church divines. He, in direct reference to 
the matter, says, 2 "But by the Papists, reatus is falsely distinguished 
into -reatus culpce and pee /ice. They allege that reatus culpce is that 
by which the sinner is of himself undeserving of the favor of God, 
and deserving of His anger and condemnation ; while reatus pcence 
is that by which he is exposed to condemnation, and bound up to 
it. They allege that the former is taken away through Christ, 
while the latter can remain as to the guilt of temporal punishment. 
But the folly of the distinction appears from the nature of both. 
For since crime and punishment are related, and guilt (reatus) can 
he nvthing else than obligation to pumsh7nent which arises out of 
crime, they come on together, and together depart: so that the 
crime and its guilt being taken away, the punishment itself should 
of necessity be removed, since it cannot be inflicted except on ac- 
count of crime. For the crime cannot be said to be remitted, or 
its guilt taken away, if anything still remains for the sinner to suf- 
fer on account of it." This certainly is decisive. Dr. Owen, and 
others of our eminent divines, in treating the topic, speak just as 
decidedly in repudiation and reprehension of the popish figment 
which is now inculcated by Dr. Hodge as Calvinistic theology. It 
is, however, unnecessary to cite them. 

1 See his Theology. Vol. II., p. 189; compare likewise Princeton Essays. 
First Series, pp. 176-186. 2 See Loc IX., Quaest. 8, Sect. 6. 



44 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



On this whole subject, therefore, Dr. Hodge has affirmed, in re- 
gard to the teaching of the Reformed church, not only that which 
is without foundation, but that which is contrary to fact, and the 
misconception runs through all his discussions respecting it. He 
moreover, and with the same peremptoriness, claims that his the- 
ory of the gratuitous imputation of sin is taught in the doctrinal 
standards of our Church. He says : " According to this view, 
hereditary depravity follows as a penal evil from Adam's sin, and 
is not the ground of its imputation to men. This, according to 
our understanding of it, is essentially the old Calvinistic doctrine. 
This is our doctrine, and the doctrine of the standards of our 
Church. For they make original sin to consist, 1st, In the guilt 
of Adam's first sin ; 2ndly, The want of original righteousness ; 
and 3dly, The corruption of our whole nature." 1 The same is 
many times repeated in his Theology, 2 from which we cite the fol- 
lowing brief explanations : " His (Adam's) sin was not our sin. 
Its guilt does not belong to us personally. It is imputed to us as 
something not our own, a peccatum alienum ; and the penalty of it, 
the forfeiture of the divine favor, the loss of original righteousness, 
and spiritual death, are its sad consequences." 3 " To impute sin, in 
scriptural and theological language, is to impute the guilt of sin. 
And by guilt is meant, not criminality or moral ill-desert, 7nuch less 
moral pollution , but the judicial obligation to satisfy justice." 4 

Now, although there can be no rational doubt (as will fully ap- 
pear in the sequel,) that had the question been propounded to the 
Westminster Assembly, as to the meaning they attach to the term 
guilt, in the passage above cited by Dr. Hodge, they, one and all, 
would have answered, Guilt by participation {culpa participatione, 
to use the expression which then and previously was everywhere 
current in the Calvinistic church), and in which even the supra- 
lapsarian Rutherford would have joined ; and although this expla- 
nation of the term in such connection is found everywhere existing 
in our theology, Dr. Hodge has utterly slighted and repudiated it 
as unworthy of notice ; and on the most unauthorized assumption 
claims that the guilt referred to is that of a peccatum. alienum, or 
Adam's personal sin alone. And in entire disregard of all the 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 168. 

2 See his Theology, Vol. II., pp. 192-227. 

3 Ibid. Vol. II., p. 225. 4 Ibid. p. 196. 



ANTECEDENT AND GRATUITOUS USEPUTATIOX. 



45 



other statements of our standards affirming a community of guilt,, 
and against all emphatic precedent in the acknowledged statement 
of the doctrine itself, persists likewise in claiming that the order of 
topics, as exhibited in this one place, is designed by the Assembly 
as a logical statement of cause and effect — the cause being Adam's 
peccatum alienum, and the effect being the universal depravity or 
corruption of his posterity. And having thus, by the merest petitio- 
principii, assumed all this, he deduces the monstrous ('if I may 
employ one of his favorite terms,) and equally false and baseless- 
conclusion, that our standards support the theory of the gratuitous 
imputation of sin. 1 

In our former essay 2 we called the attention of Dr. Hodge to 
the error here referred to, and gave him full proof that the di- 
vines of the Reformation never attach the slightest importance to 
the mere order or arrangement in which the topics, guilt and de- 
pravity, are presented in defining the doctrine of original sin; but 
(holding as they clo, that the doctrine is to be explicated from an 
equal recognition of both the federal and natural relations of the 
race to Adam), were satisfied if only the statement contained a 
clear enunciation of each ; and that they sometimes state the topics 
in the order of guilt, depravity, death, and at other times the same 
divines present them in the order of depravity, guilt, death ; which 
fact, while it illustrates their view of the svnchronousness of PTiilt 
and depravity in the race, shows at the same time the impossi- 
bility of supposing that they should have regarded either as 
causal of the other; that is, depravity as causal of this imputation 
(as Placa?us maintained), or the imputation as causal of the de- 
pravity, as is alleged by Dr. Hodge, who, as above stated, persists 

1 So far as mere logical order is concerned, however, there could indeed be 
no valid objection to admitting its existence in the statement referred to, if 
the term guilt be taken in the sense attached to it by the Westminster divines, 
i. e., guilt by participation of Adam 's first sin ; for this places the loss of origi- 
nal righteousness and the corruption of our whole nature in their proper and 
recognized relation to the first sin. But to depart from the recognized mean- 
ing of the term (in such connection), and to attribute to it, as Dr. Hodge does, 
the sense of liability to punishment for a mere peccatum alienum. is to invert 
their doctrine, and to represent them as teaching what they utterly disclaim 
and condemn. But no such sentiment was known to the Church in their day, 
as we shall abundantly show, except to be rejected as a pernicious heresy. 

2 See Danville Review for 1861, pp. 403-407. 



46 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



upon a mere petitio principtii, which is disproved, moreover, by 
the existing facts, to claim that in the foregoing citation from our 
standards there is (1), A recognition of Adam's merely personal 
sin, or pecca turn alietium, as the first sin; and (2), A logical order 
of statement, making the guilt of that merely personal sin causal 
of the depravity of the race; while, at the same time, he would 
subordinate to this mere assumption all their other statements 
'which so clearly affirm a community of guilt in the fall. And so, 
upon this mere shade of a shadow, gratuitous imputation must be 
confounded with immediate and antecedent imputation, and be re- 
garded as the doctrine of our Church. A rigid analysis is, how- 
ever, the only refutation which such a procedure requires. 

The statement with which this section commences exhibits the 
ground on which Dr. Hodge's strange misapprehension must have 
occurred ; who, finding that the old divines, when they treat of the 
doctrine of original sin in the relation it sustains to Divine justice, 
always place the culpa or reatus before the corruption or peccatum 
inhcerens, inferred that the blameworthiness was held by. them to 
be on account of Adam's peccatum alienum alone, (a notion they 
always repudiate,) and lost sight of the fact, so fully affirmed by 
them, that it is on account of Adam's sin, and of our own partici- 
pation therein. How easily, for instance, might the meaning of 
the writer of such a passage as the following be misconceived by 
one who had persuaded himself that the doctrine of the gratuitous 
imputation of sin was a part of their theology, to-wit: "The first 
sin or fall of Adam and original sin differ as cause and effect. For 
the fall of Adam is the cause of guilt and corruption, not only of 
Adam himself, but of his entire posterity. But original sin is 
nothing other than the effect itself of the first fall, (existing and 
inhering in Adam, even before he proceeded to sin actually,) being 
propagated to posterity, to-wit : the guilt and corruption of nature. 
. . . . Depravity cannot be the first part of original sin. For 
God does not inflict the punishment of privation and depravity 
unless upon those who are guilty. Guilt, therefore, precedes in 
the order of nature." 1 

Dr. Hodge, in applying such a passage, (as in similar instances 
he has done very frequently,) so as to make it sustain his theory 

1 See the Commentary of Dr. David Pareus, on Leviticus xii. (Opera Ex- 
egetica, Tom. I., page 412. Francofurti, 1647.) 



ANTECEDENT AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



47 



-of gratuitous imputation, would perpetrate an incongruity of which 
no theologian ought to be guilty. For " the guilt which precedes 
in the order of nature," is the guilt, not of Adam's personal sin 
alone, but of our sin in the fall. And our readers will see, by our 
subsequent citations from this great divine, that no theologian of 
the Reformation was more decidedly hostile than he to the whole 
theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, which, in his day-, was 
perpetually asseverated by the Socinian and Remonstrant schools. 
JBy the sin and fall of Adam, therefore, he does not mean only his 
^personal sin, but our sin in and with him, as w T hen, for example, 
remarking on Ezekiel xviii., he, after citing Romans v. 12, adds, 
""And so, on account of the first fall of Adam, his whole posterity 
contracted guilt, and was deprived of its original dignity and 
righteousness, (1), Because his entire posterity sinned in Adam, 
seeing that they were in him. Wherefore, it was not only on ac- 
count of a foreign sin, but on account also of their own ; non 
iantum p>ropter alienum, sed etiam propter suum peccatum ." 

And then, moreover, the definition which Dr. Hodge, in his late 
work, as in his earlier writings, has attached to " immediate im- 
putation," confounding it with gratuitous imputation, differs toto 
•coelo from the definition attached to it by the Calvinistic church. 
I refer not to the Confessio Helvetica, (though this fully sustains 
the representation,) of which Hase, in his Church History, declares 
that its "legal influence had ceased even at the commencement of 
the eighteenth century;" and which Ebrard, too much in the 
denunciatory style of Dr. Hodge, has characterized as the "ridic- 
ulous after-birth of a symbolic book;" but I include all the acknow- 
ledged doctrinal symbols of the Church, and the statements of her 
representative divines. Dr. Hodge, in his Theology, has largely 
•cited those symbols; but aware that this doctrine is not taught in 
any one of them, as he is obliged tacitly to concede, has cited them 
in Latin without assigning any reason for doing so, and has thus 
placed it beyond the reach of the mass of our Church members to 
form an intelligent judgment from the facts in the case. 

The phrase immediate imputation, in very recent usage, has 
been employed in a two-fold signification; and, as thus used, may 
mean either the direct imputation of the first sin of the race, or 
the alone imputation of Adam's personal sin (the peccatum alien- 
um). In the former sense it is employed by the Calvinistic church 



48 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



after the distinction between mediate and immediate imputation 
had been recognized, (i. e., during the latter part of the seventeentli 
century,) and in the latter sense Dr. Hodge employs it, who seems 
never to have ascertained its true import, and therefore prepos- 
terously employs it as a synonym with gratuitous imputation in 
respect to both sin and righteousness. The former usage presents 
the idea that the race sinned in and fell with Adam in the first 
sin; and that, on account of this mutual participation, that sin was 
directly or immediately imputed both to Adam and themselves,, 
and antecedently to the personal existence of his posterity. But 
the latter usage excludes this idea of participation, as may be seen 
by the foregoing citations from Dr. Hodge. And any who may 
employ it agreeably to such usage must necessarily maintain, as 
did Socinus and his followers, and likewise the Remonstrant 
school, that the first sin was Adam's alone, and that as such it 
was gratuitously imputed to his posterity. In the former usage 
we have depravity, guilt, death; not, indeed, as a logical statement 
presenting depravity as causal of the guilt, but merely as synchro- 
nizing with it; and in the latter we have guilt, depravity, death, 
claimed by Dr. Hodge as a logical statement of cause and effect,. 
Adam's personal sin being the cause, and the universal depravity 
of the race the effect. The former teaches that the first sin, with 
its accompanying guilt, was a common sin, being mutually parti- 
cipated by ourselves and by Adam ; while the latter teaches that 
originally the first sin was not ours, but that God has made it 
ours, — that is, common to the race, — by a forensic imputation. 
The former finds the guilt already common; the latter makes it 
common. In the former we contract the guilt by our fall and 
sin in Adam; in the latter the guilt is inflicted on us while yet in 
a state of innocence, in punishment for the peccatum alienum of 
Adam. 

Any intelligent perusal of the old theology will evince the utter 
impossibility of the supposition that the expression antecedent or 
immediate imputation should be employed therein to signify gra- 
tuitous imputation; nor is it conceivable how such perusal should 
fail to show that the expression can only mean an imputation 
grounded on a real participation by the posterity of Adam in the 
guilt or sin of his fall. ~No scholar can be pardoned for con- 
founding the two ; or for maintaining either that they convey the 



ANTECEDENT AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



49 



same idea, or that the one implies the other. The difference be- 
tween the two doctrines, as exhibited in our theology, is, as Dr. 
Hodge perpetually alleges, a vital and fundamental difference; 
although, as his explications evince, he has so grievously misap- 
prehended the phraseology itself as to mistake the one for the 
other. The doctrine of the gratuitous imputation of Adam's sin, 
(that is, its imputation irrespective of our own subjective ill-desert,) 
the Augustinian divines denounce without measure, and utterly 
disclaim (as we shall show), and insist, moreover, in the most de- 
cided manner that the in odes in which both sin and righteousness 
are communicated form no part of the apostolic comparison or 
analogy in Romans v. 12-21; though Dr. Hodge, as our previous 
citations demonstrate, is necessitated, in the strongest manner, to 
affirm the contrary, since without this admission his whole theory 
is left destitute of even a shadow of scriptural support. All this 
we shall make good in its proper place in the argument ; for the 
point is indeed vital in the discussion. In employing the phrase 
"immediate imputation," therefore, we emphatically repeat that 
the Calvinistic divines (even from the very commencement of that 
employment of the phrase) never mean by it what Dr. Hodge 
means : a forensic imputation of the jjeccatum alienum of Adam, 
as antecedent to and solely productive of the inherent sin or cor- 
ruption of the race; but an imputation, not only of Adam's sin, 
but of our own sin in and with him; which imputation, as they 
teach, is antecedent to our birth, or to what is named in the church 
theology " actual sin" as distinguished from the inherent or ha- 
bitual. And after the most careful and protracted consideration 
of the subject, I cannot hesitate to affirm that there is really no 
basis for an intelligent litigation of this point more than there 
could be in the case of a man claiming to be an astronomer who 
should seriously maintain that the earth is the centre of the stellar 
and solar system. In such contingency, — that is, if it were at all 
important to meet his lucubrations, — little more could be de- 
manded of you than to announce the facts of the science, and 
leave him to explain the grounds of his strange misapprehension 
concerning them. 

I greatly fear that the repetitious particularity which I have 
regarded as necessary in treating the theme of the present section 
may have wearied the reader; but with the whole field and its 
4 



50 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



various bearings in full prospect, which it is the design of this 
treatise to occupy, I must crave his indulgence for what seemed 
to me to be a fair and full statement of a most important branch 
of the argument, and one which has been greatly mystified. I 
conclude with a single reflection. 

The main principle underlying this discussion is, therefore, not 
only fundamental to theology, but in the issue, moreover, the 
entire foundation of ethics or morality is clearly involved. For 
example: let the serious-minded reader propound to himself, and 
frankly answer according to the spontaneous convictions of his 
moral nature and the impressions derived from the teachings of 
the divine word, the question, whether it can conceivably consist 
with the moral perfections of God, as revealed in His word and 
works, that He, on any ground whatever and by a mere act of the 
will, should constitute an innocent dependent creature depraved, 
apostate, and criminal, and then treat him or proceed against him 
as such? May He, in the case of creatures in whom sin or de- 
pravity does not exist, proceed, by a mere sovereign act of His will, 
first to produce it within them, and then to punish them for it 
according to the fearful inflictions of His punitive justice ? In 
other words, Is it the prerogative of divine justice to pronounce 
sentence according to actually existing desert, e. g., in the case of 
apostasy or criminality of any sort; or are we to regard it as pos- 
sessing the prerogative first to produce effectively that apostasy 
or ill-desert, and then to visit with its fearful retributions those 
who have thus been rendered subject to the infliction? If the 
latter, (and the latter is what Dr. Hodge teaches as our theology,) 
then the conception of divine justice in its relation to the creature, 
and as entertained by all rational or accountable beings, must cer- 
tainly undergo an essential and radical modification, and along 
therewith the whole science of ethics and theology. The issue, 
therefore, involves principles of antagonism eternally irrecon- 
cilable, — principles which, of course, therefore, can never be 
intelligently commingled in any consistent or accurately digested 
theological system, — a statement which carries with it clearly the 
evidence of its truth. iSTor can any attempt at defining sin, guilt, 
the Divine will, justice, and the like, suffice to bring those antago- 
nizing elements into coherence or correlation, any more than they 
could suffice to bring into mutual coherence those of holiness and sin. 



MEDIATE IMPUTATION. 



51 



§ 7. The Calvinistic System and Mediate Imputation. 
The Princeton Professor in his Theology, as also in his previous 
discussions of the topic, has classed under the category of mediate 
imputationists those who reject his theory of gratuitous, or (as he 
preposterously names it) antecedent and immediate imputation* 
and adhere to the expressed doctrine of the Church — the culpa 
participatione. In a previous section we have shown that in the 
Church theology there is observable a clear and radical distinction 
between the direct or immediate imputation of the first sin (which 
includes not only the sin of Adam, but that of his posterity as 
implicated with him in the same sin), 2 and the gratuitous impu- 
tation of Adam's peccatum allenum. She acknowledges and de- 
fends the former, while she unhesitatingly repudiates the claim of 
the latter to furnish any adequate or even intelligible basis on 
which to account for or explain the existing depravity of the race ; 
and on the contrary, directly maintained (as we have stated) that 
not only did Adam sin, but that all so sinned as to become impli- 
cated in the guilt of his sin, and thereby to render themselves 
subjectively deserving of the Divine displeasure; thus affirming 
that the sin of Adam (as their representative), and their own guilt 
by participation therein, constituted "the first sin," or "the 
Adamic sin," which was immediately or directly imputed, and so 
brought the xptfia els xar dzpijia, or judgment unto condemnation, 
upon all. And thus, as stated in our previous section, she expli- 
cated the doctrine of original sin from an equal recognition of the 
two-fold standpoint, to-wit: the moral (subsequently named the 
federal), and the natural headship of Adam. His sin was not re- 
garded as his sin only ; but as likewise their sin, in the plain and 
obvious sense that it was the expression of their own as well as of 
his guilt and criminality. Theirs, as the old divines express it, 
was culpa participatione : they participated in his sin, and the 

1 In my former essay, as already stated, and out of undue deference to Dr. 
Hodge's authority, I frequently employed the terms "antecedent" and "im- 
mediate imputation," as he does, to designate gratuitous imputation, though 
accompanied with frequent expressions of dissent from such usage as inaccu- 
rate. In a revision of that essay (still unpublished) the error is corrected, and 
it is hereby likewise retracted ; for it was a concession which ought not to 
have been made in any form whatever. 

2 This language is Heidegger's, who employs it in stating the accredited 
doctrine of the Church. (See Danville Review for 1862, p. 560.) 



52 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



guilt was common alike to all. And hence upon all equally came 
the judgment unto condemnation: "death passed upon all men,, 
inasmuch as all sinned." They held, not that his personal act 
was our personal act, but maintained that his sin is not to be con- 
founded with our sin, and vice versa, or to be reckoned as in any 
sense identical therewith, except as the guilt of the participator 
may be regarded as the guilt of the principal. 

Nothing can more strikingly evince how strange and unaccount- 
able are the misconceptions and perversions of Calvinistic theology 
by Dr. Hodge than his perpetual endeavors to confound this doc- 
trine, — the doctrine of the Augustinian church in all ages, — with 
the doctrine of mediate imputation, as taught by Placseus. It is. 
as unaccountable as it is irreconcilable with airy clear or definite 
conceptions of the Church theology, and can only be explained on 
the ground that the ignis fataus of the gratuitous imputation of 
sin, being accepted as a guide, led him thus shockingly astray, and 
then left him to flounder inextricably and hopelessly in the morasses 
and quagmires into which he was so willing to be brought. The 
same misconception controls his exposition of Romans v. 12-2,1,. 
and suggests his views of guilt, sin, justice, justification, etc., and, 
in a word, has led him to reject as " nonsensical " the Church doc- 
trine of our participation in the first sin, and even to denounce it 
as mediate imputation, and utterly preposterous. Such things are 
truly deplorable ; but the Church has no saving alternative, if she 
would deliver herself from these fatal toils, but to cashier this 
entire representation and return to the purity and simplicity of 
her faith. And then, moreover, to designate this theory "the 
federal system" of our theology, as Dr. Hodge does, is not. only a 
misnomer, but a reprehensible perversion of facts. Participation, 
therefore, in no sense of the term either involves or implies the 
doctrine of mediate imputation, but necessarily excludes it. And 
no man can either confound the two, or mistake the one for the 
other, without forfeiting all claim to candor or accuracy. 

When the supralapsarian theory, as taught by Maccovius, 
Twisse, and others, was making the most strenuous efforts to re- 
gain the ground it had so ingloriously lost at the Synod of Dort, 
the learned and eminent divines who constituted the school of 
Saumur devoted their energies to an earnest and well-meant en- 
deavor to deliver the Reformed theology from its entanglements 



MEDIATE IMPUTATION. 



53 



and encroachments. Their course of procedure therein was not, 
however, as wise as it was well intended; for, in pursuing it, they 
unguardedly verged to the opposite extreme, and instead of accu- 
rately defining and then defending (as they, of course, should have 
done) the doctrine of their church as exhibited in those articles 
upon which the encroachment was attempted, they assumed philo- 
sophical standpoints, which logically induced them to vary the 
ground, and to such an extent, ultimately, that the result of their 
efforts was a serious and inadmissible modification of the doctrine 
itself. Placeeus, who in culture and intellectual power was in- 
ferior to neither of his celebrated colleagues (Amyrald and Capell), 
prepared a series of theses, directed against the attempt to explicate 
original sin on the ground of Adam's federal relation to his seed, 
and assuming the position that the corrupt nature derived from 
our first parents is the ground of the imputation of their sin. 1 In 
other words, that original sin should be explicated upon the ground 
of the natural relation to their posterity. And these theses he 
distributed through the Synod in print and manuscript. This 
view, as above stated, he designed as an offset to the error which 
was then seeking to extend itself in the Church — to-wit: that the 
moral relation, to the practical exclusion of the natural, is the 
ground for explicating the doctrine of original sin. He virtually 
ignored Adam's moral relation, though it should be likewise here 
stated that, in a work issued by him ten years after the condem- 
nation of his views by the Synod of Charenton, he denies this ; 
and by making the then unrecognized distinction between mediate 
and immediate imputation, claims that he admits the former and 
denies only the latter. 

1 Dr. Shedd, who has given an excellent account of Placaeus and his views 
(see History of Doctrines, Vol. II., p. 163), states that it was his purpose " to 
•carry the doctrine of gratuitous imputation, such as holds true of Christ's 
righteousness, over to Adam's sin, and proposed to impute the Adamic guilt, 
without any real or inherent demerit upon the part of the posterity;" and 
further adds that Turrettin and Heidegger opposed him therein. Admitting 
this to be so, how can Dr. Hodge, with any degree of propriety, represent 
Placaeus (as he always does) as grievously in error on this whole subject ; 
for this is precisely his own theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin ? And 
if such we're his views and intention, Placeeus (Dr. Hodge being judge) must, 
after all, have entertained the true doctrine, and Turrettin and Heidegger, in 
opposing him, have been clearly in the wrong. 



54 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



In our discussion (already referred to) in the Danville Review, 
we have with sufficient fulness treated the matter relating to 
Placseus and his doctrine, and shall not occupy space by here re- 
peating what is therein presented. Let it therefore suffice to re- 
mark that mediate imputation is not, as Placseus incorrectly 
represented, antithetical of what the Church denominates im- 
mediate imputation, but is simply the antithesis of gratuitous, the 
one taking the natural and the other the federal relation for its 
basis, while the Church doctrine, immediate and antecedent impu- 
tation, recognizes both relations equally as the basis for explicat- 
ing the doctrine of original sin. The advocates of the former 
theories do, indeed, claim to recognize both relations ; but in this 
they plainly deceive themselves in the use of terms, as we have 
stated on a previous page. For if the federal relation be the 
ground upon which the judgment unto condemnation and its con- 
sequent moral corruption come upon the race (as Dr. Hodge 
alleges), the natural relation can have no doctrinal significance 
whatever. The violation of the covenant by the peccatum alienum y 
or merely personal transgression of Adam, is the sole ground of 
the guilt and consequent condemnation and pollution of his pos- 
terity; and of course the natural relation, or headship, is practi- 
cally ignored and set aside, so far as any determining effect is 
concerned. And so, on the contrary, if the natural relation be 
assumed as the basis on which to explicate the doctrine, and on 
which to account for the corruption of the race, the moral or 
federal relation is equally without a determining significance. And 
to claim that this relation is likewise recognized in the explanation 
is merely to deceive one's self by the use of terms which, in such 
connection, are without meaning. For here, as in the former 
instance, the only existing distinction is that of cause and effect ; 
that is, the natural relation induces the imputation in this case y 
as the moral or federal does in the other. 

I repeat, therefore, that the Calvinistic church has never ad- 
vanced or accepted either of these theories as expressive of her 
true views, her doctrine being that original sin can be truly expli- 
cated only by an equal recognition of both these relations. God 
finds Adam, as the federal and natural head of the race, and the 
race itself, alike implicated in the guilt of the first sin, and there- 
fore imputes it alike to both, — to Adam as principal, to the race 



DR. HODGE AND PARTICIPATION. 



55 



as participators. The sinning was synchronous ; " all sinned," as 
the apostle teaches (using the second aorist or historic tense), and 
thus the natural and moral headship are, as they should be, equally 
recognized as possessing a determining signiticancy, which it is im- 
possible that they should coincidently possess in either of the the- 
ories aforesaid, seeing that they resolve into the simple relation 
of cause and effect both sin and impuation / i. e., sin and the con- 
sequent imputation ; or imputation and the consequent sin, as above 
shown. It requires, therefore, no argument to evince that the doc- 
trine of the Church — antecedent and immedAate imputation — (as it 
is expressed in our later theology), is opposed alike to the techni- 
cal theories of both gratuitous and mediate imputation. 

§ 8. Dr. Hodge and Participation. 
Whether the doctrine of our participation in the first sin may be 
with propriety characterized, as it is by Dr. Hodge, as " Pantheistic, 
nonsensical, and impossible," is a question we shall now submit to 
our readers. 

In a future section the question will be considered whether the 
main issue involved in this inquiry may properly be regarded as a 
subject for philosophical solution ; but here our design is to ascer- 
tain, in view of the facts in the case, whether the doctrine itself 
involves a principle which may, with even the slightest degree of 
propriety, be characterized by the epithets aforesaid. Contro- 
vertists rarely employ epithet and denunciation except from a 
conscious failure of resources. But in no case can such terms be 
regarded as a judicious substitute for argument, and especially when 
employed in assailing the deliberately formed views entertained 
and cherished by the great body of the learned and godly who in 
different ages have adorned the Church of God. 

We need not here repeat the very offensive language of Profes- 
sor Hodge, as cited in § 5 above. Our readers may find also much 
too frequent repetition of such and similar terms in all his assaults 
upon the doctrine. But though we are not willing to imitate his 
example therein, it is only just to remark that, were we so disposed, 
it would really be difficult to find under the category of theology 
a subject more exposed to unsparing, pointed satire than his own 
theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, and this, too, in the 
entire range of its relation to sin, guilt, justice, human accounta- 



56 



ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



bility, as well as to the whole of God's moral character and attri- 
butes. Unsupported as it is by even a shadow of divine authority, 
as exhibited either in the word or works of God, it would consti- 
tute a most legitimate theme for sarcasm and denunciation, were it 
proper to employ such in a discussion like the present. We shall 
not therefore follow the example, frequent as the provocations are, 
which his indiscretion in this regard has furnished; but in view 
of the facts and statements which follow, shall leave our readers to 
determine as to the propriety of the language to which we have 
called their attention. 

In treating sundry objections to the Scripture doctrine of satis- 
faction, Dr. Hodge says, very justly and forcibly, " On this class 
of objections it may be remarked, 1, That they avail nothing 
against the plain declarations of the Scriptures. If the Bible 
teaches that the innocent may bear the guilt of the actual trans- 
gressor — that he may endure the penalty incurred in his place — 
then it is in vain to say that this cannot be done." 1 He then, on 
the following page, adds, " There would be no end of controversy, 
and no security for any truth whatever, if the strong personal con- 
victions of individual minds be allowed to determine what is or 
what is not true ; what the Bible may and what it may not be al- 
lowed to teach " — a most important truth, but greviously neutral- 
ized by what follows ; for he continues thus, " It must be admit- 
ted, however, that there are moral intuitions founded on the consti- 
tution of our nature, and constituting a primary revelation of the 
nature of God, vihich no external revelation can possibly contradict. 
The authority of these intuitive truths is assumed as fully recog- 
nized in the Bible itself. They have, however, their criteria. 
They cannot be enlarged or diminished. Those criteria are, (1), 
They are all recognized in the Scriptures themselves ; (2), They 
are universally admitted as true by all rational minds ; (3), They 
cannot be denied. "No effort of the will, and ^no sophistry of the 
understanding, can destroy their authority over reason and con- 
science.' 5 

This is neither the place nor the occasion for entering upon a 
discussion of intuitions and their criteria ; nor, indeed, does the 
argument require it. The aim of such statements as the foregoing 
seems sufficiently plain when viewed in connection with the cita- 
1 Theology, Vol. II., page 530. 



DR. HODGE AND PARTICIPATION. 



57 



lions from Dr. Hodge in § 5 above, and with the fact that he un- 
hesitatingly rejects the doctrine of participation on the assumed 
ground that it is inconsistent with reason, philosophy, and common 
sense, and is nonsensical. And with the fact that when, in obvious 
reference to this doctrine, he applies his principles, 1 he remarks? 
" We have a right to reject as untrue whatever it is impossible that 
God should require us to believe. He can no more require us to 
believe what is absurd than to do what is wrong." But Dr. Hodge 
has decided that the doctrine of our participation in the first sin is 
absurd and nonsensical, and it of course is a foregone conclusion, 
that whatever the Bible may affirm in relation to it, God does not 
and cannot require us to accept that doctrine as true. Is such, 
then, a legitimate application of his doctrine of intuitions 2 If not, 
what is the real import of his language ? 

That there are recognized in intellectual and moral science, and 
in all true science, what may be named "first truths," is of course 
undeniable. But that what are called first truths, primary and 
dependent intuitions, etc., in natural theology may, in the manner 
above illustrated, set aside the direct averments of a conceded ''ex- 
ternal revelation," or revealed theology, the very design of which is 
to inform the understanding, correct our errors, and make known 
to us truths which we could not otherwise have ascertained, is, in 
every view that can be taken of it, simply preposterous. 

We shall not dwell upon the wholly indefinite nature of this 
attempted delineation of intuitions and their criteria; for what- 
ever may be conceded as the actual truth in relation to that mat- 
ter, the loose and indefinite definings of Dr. Hodge present the 
-subject in an aspect wholly impracticable, so far as any benefit is to 
be derived by the serious inquirer ; while at the same time they 
open the way for a thorough misconception as well as perilous 
misuse and application of all that is really true concerning them. 
And a glance will make this sufficiently obvious to any intelligent 
reader who will but ask himself, (1), Who has decided as to what 
.are these "moral intuitions?" and by what process is it to be 
actually determined that " they cannot be enlarged or diminished ?" 
■(2), Who is to decide whether or not any assumed criterion is re- 
cognized in the Scriptures? Has this been determined ? If so, by 

1 In his discussion of the question " What is impossible t" See his Theology, 
Vol. I,, pages 51, 52. 



58 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



whom ? Or is every one to decide the question for himself ? If 
not, how may it be ascertained? (3), How may it be known, in re- 
gard to any specific instance, that the criterion is universally ad- 
mitted as true by all rational minds? This can scarcely be prac- 
tically verified. Is it then to be assumed as David Hume assumed 
"universal experience" in his argument against miracles? And (4), 
How is it to be ascertained that what are or may be assumed to be 
truths of this character "cannot be denied;" and that no effort of 
the will, and no sophistry of the understanding can destroy their 
authority over the reason and conscience?" Are we to take this 
also for granted, and consequently that they possess greater 
power than any of the truths which God has "externally revealed ?" 
And is every man in any specific instance to determine it, as well 
as what are those truths, for himself ? and (5), Who, then, is to de- 
termine the intuitions and demonstrate their number, and point out 
the unexceptionable method of applying them ? Or is Dr. Hodge's 
aforesaid method of their application to the doctrine of participa- 
tion to be accepted as legitimate ? In all these particulars we are 
hopelessly left in practical uncertainty. And in what way, there- 
fore, are these criteria, with their intuitions, to secure to us, in re- 
gard to any of the announcements of divine revelation, any good 
or useful practical result ? And of what possible use are the- 
aforesaid delineations, except to throw open the door to naturalism,, 
and to invite her (as in Germany) to a seat in the Church of God ? 

These and similar passages in the work, however, bear plainly 
the appearance of being designed to level an avenue for the bat- 
tery of so-called reason, by which to approach under cover and 
assail the doctrine itself, and upon which to justify the denuncia- 
tion of it as absurd and impossible. Though incidental approaches 
apparently, we do not regard them as any the less designed. But 
this may pass for the present. As regards the sentiment itself,, 
however, it certainly is never to be presumed that God, either in 
His written word, or through the works of His providence, should 
say or do anything which would be in contravention of the moral 
and intellectual nature He has given us. And therefore, to hypo- 
thecate that, should He reveal thus or so, we would be bound to- 
believe it, is to trifle egregiously with a very serious subject. And 
hence our duty as fallen and depraved creatures is, obviously, not 
to go about to ascertain whether a given statement in His word ; , 



DE. HODGE AND PARTICIPATION. 



59 



or "external revelation." comports with certain assumed intuitive 
truths in order to know whether we may receive it or not, but 
simply to enquire and ascertain, through the legitimate principles 
of hermeneutics. what God has announced in His word; and when 
ascertained, to receive it with the most unwavering assurance that, 
since He has made the announcement, it can contain nothing that 
is either "Pantheistic, nonsensical, or impossible.'' 1 The case as 
presented above by Dr. Hodge, if it have any designed bearing in 
justifying his treatment of the doctrine of our participation of 
Adam's sin. would warrant the attempt of the inquirer first to as- 
certain certain so-called intuitive truths, according as in his wisdom 
he may presume that the Scriptures recognize them; and secondly* 
having ascertained what he has persuaded himself are really such, 
to accept them as constituting a primary revelation of God's 
nature, and as something, therefore, which no eternal revelation 
can contradict: and so to constitute thereupon an a priori prin- 
ciple wholly independent of grammatical exegesis, and by it to 
determine, in certain cases at least (as in Romans v. 12), what is 
and what must be the real meaning of the inspired word. And 
should those assumed intuitions pronounce that a statement taken 
in its strict grammatical import is impossible and absurd, it is to 
be accounted such ('however clearly it may be sustained by the 
v.*v.8 loquendi of the Scriptures . according to Dr. Hodge's canon 
above-quoted. " It is as impossible that God should require us to 
believe what is absurd as to do what is wrong." This is precisely 
the principle and the process (as any one may perceive who will 
peruse only the work of Dr. Tindall 2 1 which resulted in the de- 
velopment of naturalism in England, and subsequently of rational- 
ism on the continent. 3 And it is both deplorable and humiliating 
to rind the sad lesson already so utterly disregarded, that, notwith- 
standing the terrible experience through which the Church in 
Germany has passed (from an incautious recognition of this same 
principle by Sernler), a teacher in one of our leading theological 
schools should thus openly appear as its advocate. 

} The direct practical bearing of the principle thus insisted on will strongly 
appear in §§ 15-25. in which Dr. Hodge's exegesis of Eom. v. 12-21, is con- 
sidered. 

2 u Christianity as Old as the Creation." London, 1730. republished at 
Newberg, New York. 1798. s See our § 26. infra. 



60 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



The accuracy of this whole representation is susceptible of illus- 
tration from facts without number. We shall, however, here ad- 
duce only the following example of the application of the same 
principle by one of the fathers of English naturalism. He says: 
" All that the Socinians say is, that the Supreme God and a human 
soul cannot be the same intellectual being, agent, or person, and 
therefore that they cannot with any truth or consistency be joined 
together under one common name, as if they were* the same I, thje 
same he, or the same intelligent person or self. And really, sir, 
methinks it is a little hard that men should be damned only be- 
cause they w r ill not talk the grossest nonsense and renounce the 
very first principles of reason." 1 

If, then, no external revelation can set aside what may be called 
" intuitive truths," and if on such dicta we may be authorized to 
reject as absurd and nonsensical a plain and distinct averment of 
God's word, what shall be said of this and similar applications of 
the rule ? Can any truth be more " reasonable," or more obviously- 
intuitive, than that the Eternal Creator and a creature of time 
cannot be the same intellectual being or person, so as to be joined 
under the same I and he? And are we thereupon to repudiate 
the knowledge which comes to us from a higher source than our 
reason and intuitions, and conclude, as Morgan and the Socinians 
do, that the Bible can teach nothing inconsistent therewith, since 
" it is a monstrous evil," as Dr. Hodge affirms, " to make the Bible 
contradict the common sense and common consciousness of men ?" 2 

And then, further, what can be a plainer intuition than that a 
plurality of persons cannot be predicated of a moral and intellec- 
tual nature, whose essence is one and indivisible ? and that hence, 
according to the foregoing principles, our reason and intuitions 
are to accept no information to the contrary, however high the 
source of its emanation % Observe how glibly Socinus can, in re- 
lation to this same matter, employ the terms "common sense," 
" personality," and the like. He says : " Kow, as to what apper- 
tains to common sense itself, there is no one so stupid that he may 
not perceive these things to be self-contradictory ; to-wit : that our 
God, the Creator of heaven and earth, should be one only in num- 

1 Tracts by Dr. Morgan (a dissenter from the Church of England), page 
239 ; London, 1726. 

2 See Dr. Hodge's Revised Commentary on Romans v. 12-21. 



DR. HODGE AND PARTICIPATION. 



61 



ber, and yet be three, each of which is Himself one God. For, 
as to what they say, that God is indeed one in number by reason 
of essence, but three as to persons, they here again utter things 
which are mutually subversive, since it is impossible that two or 
three persons should exist where, numerically, there is but one in- 
dividual essence ; and to constitute more persons than one, more 
than one individual essence is required. For what is a person 
other than an individual, intelligent essence? Or in what con- 
ceivable way may one person be distinguished from another except 
by the diversity of his individual or numerical essence? . . . . . 
Wherefore it is astonishing that, notwithstanding, they should say 
that while a thing of this character ought not to be inquired into, 
it yet ought to be firmly believed, as though any thing ought to 
be believed that contradicts the truth, or that any thing may be 
true which manifestly conflicts with reason itself and implies a 
contradiction, as it certainly does to say that the Divine essence is 
only one in number, and yet not only one Divine Person, but, 
many." 1 Thus he finds the proposition impossible, contrary to 
reason and common sense, self-contradictory, and absolutely "un- 
thinkable," to use the expression of Dr. Baur of Tubingen, and. 
repeatedly cited and adopted by Dr. Hodge. 

After this preposterous style, therefore, do Morgan, Socinus,. 
and their followers apply their doctrine of intuitions to decide 
whether the truths announced by revelation are to be believed;, 
and on the principle laid down by Dr. Hodge, and as applied by 
him to the doctrine which the Church has ever regarded as taught 
in Romans v. 12-21, how are we to escape their conclusion, witli 
its corollaries, rejecting the doctrine of the Trinity, the Deity and 
two natures of Christ, His satisfaction for sin, and the doctrine of 
our participation in the first sin of Adam ? — all of which, as enter- 
tained by the Church, they thus assail and reject as preposterous 
and nonsensical. It cannot be done ; for if the principle be in 
either instance legitimately applicable, it is applicable alike in all. 
The Socinians, in their application, are consistent and uniform ; 
while Dr. Hodge would be satisfied with a few applications, inas- 
much as he is not prepared to reject all the truths to which they 
apply it. But if there be any truth in history, his modesty in this. 

1 See his Quod Begni Polonice, &c, Cap. IV., Opp. Tom. I., p. 637. 



62 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



regard is not likely to be imitated by those who hereafter shall 
plead his sanction of the principle itself. 

But are our intuitions competent to grasp, or even to pronounce 
npon, any such themes, involving, as they do, truths, in regard 
both to the Divine existence and our own, of which we can really 
know nothing except what is revealed, and because nothing be- 
sides the fact itself in regard to those truths has been made known 
to man ? For example (as regards the explanatory principle of 
unity and distinction of personality in our race, as brought to view 
in Romans v. 12 and Ecclesiastes vii. 29), the facts known to God, 
and upon which is predicated the Divine announcement that we 
all sinned when Adam sinned, are still unknown to us, because 
unrevealed, — the whole matter being to us one of purely divine 
revelation. In what sense, then, are human intuitions competent 
to any judgment or decision on the subject? Certainly in no 
■conceivable sense whatever. And hence, after all that has been 
■claimed for them by Dr. Hodge and others, the naked alternative 
alone presents itself to us, either to reject the testimony of God 
without one particle of actual knowledge on the subject, or to 
accept it as sustained by all positive evidences of His revelation 
of the fact. They have neither place nor authority in determining 
what God may or may not have communicated in relation to things 
respecting which we otherwise can know nothing. 

And then further. While we might concede that the primary 
intuitions of all moral beings, in the strict sense of the term, are 
alike, there must be a vast difference between the dependent ones 
of purely holy and unfallen beings, and those of the fallen and 
depraved, whose reasonings are all liable to be swayed and per- 
verted by their selfishness and sin. And besides all this, there 
must be an immense liability in mankind to mistake and substitute 
dependent intuitions for the primary; so that mere casuistry is 
for ever liable to self-deception and delusion on this whole sub- 
ject. 

What, then, is the worth or value of our native and bedimmed 
intuitions in determining a priori on what an infinite, eternal, and 
all- wise Being may reveal respecting His nature and our own? 
Had He Himself, either " penally " or otherwise, brought us into 
a sinful, and consequently a helpless condition, such considerations 
might be shorn of their strength, so far as any practical bearing is 



DR. HODGE AND PARTICIPATION. 



63 



concerned; but as this is in no sense the fact, our undoubted 
>duty is to receive implicitly what He has spoken, and all that He 
has spoken, without questioning, or pretending to hypothecate that 
in certain contingencies we might be justified in setting aside the 
obvions import of any of the utterances of His " external reve- 
lation,'' which, so far as it legitimately conveys the impression 
that He might speak what cannot be believed, is clear blasphemy. 

Now, Dr. Hodge informs us that "human nature apart from 
human persons cannot act, and therefore cannot contract guilt, or 
be responsible;" 1 and he elsewhere represents the opposite view as 
absurd, impossible, and nonsensical; — a statement which, it must 
be conceded, exhibits either an offensive arrogance in the face of 
the universally received formula of all the churches of the Refor- 
mation, as well as of the leading divines of the Church since Au- 
gustine, (persona oorrumpit naturam, atque tunc natura corrumpit 
personam,,) or a vast attainment in the knowledge of what has 
been hitherto supposed to be unknown because unrevealed. But 
Paul, on the contrary, when treating the subject, has not scrupled 
to say that " by one man sin entered into the world, and death 
by sin, and so death passed upon all men inasmuch as all sinned;" 
and further, that because all sinned, the judgment unto condemna- 
tion passed upon all. This proposition is not less plain and definite 
than that of Dr. Hodge, and, taking its terms in the sense of the 
unvarying usus loquendi of the Scriptures, is its direct antithesis. 
Dr. Hodge claims that, his proposition being sanctioned by reason 
and his own intuitions, its counterpart must be absurd and non- 
sensical. The apostle, on the other hand, avers that his announce- 
ment is given by inspiration of God ; and as none will dispute that 
the Spirit of inspiration knows far more as to man's creation in 
the image of the Godhead, and of human nature, both in its ori- 
ginal unity and subsequent individuality, than any theologian may 
reasonably lay claim to, and that He has, moreover, here spoken 
in exact accordance with that knowledge, we may add that they 
who can are welcome to doubt as to which of these propositions 
should command our assent. 

When Dr. Hodge claims, moreover, that it is a " moral impos- 
sibility that a nature, as distinguished from a person, can sin or be 
guilty," 2 it might have been well had he explained, on his own 
1 Theology, Vol. II., p. 536. 2 Ibid., p. 537. 



64 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

principles, his method of distinguishing an intellectual and moral 
nature from personality. But as the matter stands, he makes a 
direct and dogmatic affirmation on a subject on which it is clearly 
impossible that he should know anything. It is not needed, how- 
ever, that we either deny or admit his affirmation in order fully 
to receive as truth the inspired announcement that all sinned 
when Adam sinned ; for, as already stated, we do not pretend to 
know how the posterity sinned, and neither do we believe how 
they sinned ; for the fact, and riot the mode, forms the subject of 
the announcement. And as it was not designed that we should 
either know or believe how they sinned in order to believe the 
fact stated — that they did sin — we ought to be satisfied to leave 
the fact where God has placed it. The announcement of the fact 
itself, irrespective of all theories as to mode, constitutes, as we 
have already stated, an explanatory principle which furnishes the- 
only intelligible basis on which the true explication of the doc- 
trine of original sin is possible, 1 as the fact of the unity and tri- 
personality of God, though in itself wholly inconceivable by us, 
forms the only basis on which it is at all possible to explicate the 
doctrine of redemption. And who will venture to deny that the 
inexplicable fact of oneness of nature and plurality of persons in 
the Godhead may have its distant adumbration or counterpart 
in the equally incomprehensible principle — (that is, incompre- 
hensible to us in our present stage of being) — of oneness and plu- 
rality in that nature which was created in the image of the God- 
head! 2 

Dr. Hodge, in confirmation of his reiterated and offensive allega- 
tion, that the doctrine is absurd and nonsensical, cites a similar 
denunciation of it by the late Professor F. C. Baur, the founder of 
the infidel Tiibingen school, and the bitter enemy of evangelical 
doctrine; who, having embraced the Pantheistic notions of Hegel,, 
labored during the last thirty years of his life, and by every 
means in his power, to subvert and destroy the faith of the Church. 

Luther's estimate of the importance of rightly understanding the doctrine 
may be learned, from his notes on Genesis xlii. : " Ignorantia peccati secum 
trahit ignorantia Dei, Christi, Spiritus Sancti, omniumque rerum. Nemo 
potest se fore theologum, vel lectorum, vel auditorem Scripturas Sacrse qui 
malum illud originali extenuat, aut non recte intelligit." 

2 See note B. in the Appendix. 



DR. HODGE AND PARTICIPATION. 



65 



of Christ. 1 No one ever cast so much contempt and ridicule upon 
all the Christian activities of the present century — the Sunday- 
schools, missionary operations, the evangelical alliance, etc. — as did 
this unhappy rationalist in his lectures. And no one in Tubingen 
exercised so strong a personal influence over the students, nor de- 
prived so many amongst them of the most precious treasures of 
their heart, — the faith of their childhood, the fruits of the prayers 
and tears of godly parents, and the tranquillity of the whole future 
of their lives.' 2 He denied that he was an Atheist, but that denial 
only meant that he was a Pantheist. Yet this man, compared 
with whom Socinus himself was an earnest, devout believer, is, 
with all his intensely embittered hatred of the gospel and its doc- 
trines, cited by Dr. Hodge, not only approvingly, but with an 
actual endorsement of his vapid denunciation of the Church doc- 
trine of our participation in the sin and guilt of the fall, 3 and by 
adopting his ratiocination would endeavor to sustain his own as- 
sertion that that doctrine is absurd and nonsensical. Would it not 
have been infinitely better for Dr. Hodge to abandon a principle 
which required the defense of such an ally ? If such a procedure 
be legitimate in the treatment of revealed truth (or at least of that 
which the Church of Christ has ever regarded as such), why not, 
for like purposes, cite also Socinus, and Crellius, and Morgan, and 
even Voltaire himself. But this matter must come up again. 

Upon the whole, therefore, there is no ground on which the 
doctrine before us may, without the most offensive arrogance, be 
denounced by any professed follower of Christ, as " Pantheistic, im- 
possible, and nonsensical." 

As to the position we take in maintaining and defending if, we 
add here a word in conclusion, and invite the reader to contem- 
plate, in the light of an illustration furnished by science herself, 
the reasonableness of that position, and the unreasonableness of 
assailing it, as Dr. Hodge has done. That the point of the illus- 
tration, however, may not be misconceived, we here repeat that 
the doctrine (that the whole race of man became veritable sinners 

^r. Baur was born in 1792, elected professor of theology in Tubingen in 
1826, and died there in 1861. He was the Coryphaeus of the late most de- 
structive school of German neology. 

2 See "News of the Churches," for 1861. 

3 See Dr. Hodge's Theology, Vol. II., pp. 178, 179, 223, 234. 

5 



66 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



in the fall), is recognized by the Church as simply a matter of 
fact announced by the Divine testimony, and therefore accepted 
as an undoubted truth. It is not necessary to maintain that the 
modus of the fact is incapable of ultimate solution. But while we 
concede our inability to explain itj and (as is directly and re- 
peatedly stated in our former essay), have no hypothesis to offer 
for its solution, we most emphatically affirm that our inability to 
explain the fact itself affords no rational ground for its rejection; 
and further, that so far as concerns the doctrine of original sin 
and the correlated doctrines in theological science, the inspired an- 
nouncement of the fact referred to answers every doctrinal and 
every ethical or practical purpose quite as well as a knowledge of 
the modus itself would, if it were really known or were susceptible 
of the clearest scientific verification. This is our position. Is there,, 
then, either in or about that position, aught that may warrant a 
Christian teacher, or any man who may claim only ordinary in- 
telligence in denouncing it as unphilosopbical, unscientific, or 
nonsensical? 

When Sir Isaac Newton announced to the scientific world that 
gravitation was an action between two distinct bodies, and demon- 
strated the fact, but declared his inability to explain it, a number 
of scientists at once applied themselves to the task of explicating 
that action ; whereupon Leibnitz (basing his censure, however, upon 
those attempted explanations), denounced the whole affair as ab- 
surd, or, in the philosophical sense of the term, supernatural, — 
precisely as the Professor at Princeton now bases his denuncia- 
tions of the doctrine before us upon unauthorized attempts to 
explain that which is conceded to be inexplicable. 

Sir Isaac Newton, however, had taught no theory on the sub- 
ject. Nor had he, in relation to it, even attempted to project any 
hypothesis. He had, as above stated, demonstrated the law of 
gravitation, and had accepted it as an explanatory principle, but 
as to those hypotheses which had been invented to explain the fact 
itself, he did not feel called upon to express an opinion, or either 
to adopt or reject them. And he neither affirmed nor denied that 
some medium of communication must exist between the bodies 
referred to ; and therefore when Leibnitz said, " We cannot under- 
stand this ; for how is it possible that attraction should exist at such 
incalculable distances % We will not believe till we can understand 



DR. HODGE AND PARTICIPATION. 



67 



the matter," Newton merely answered that the fact was real ; that 
its actual existence was demonstrable, and had been demonstrated, 
and was not dependent upon their ability to understand and ex- 
plain it. He would not deny that it may be ultimately explained ; 
but insisted that he was not called upon to explain it in order to 
justify either his own announcement or their reception of it as a 
fact. 

This position, as every thoughtful intelligent mind must admit, 
was eminently philosophical and reasonable. And it is ours pre- 
cisely in relation to the great truth on which is founded the Church 
doctrine of original sin. God Himself, in an inspired announce- 
ment, has given us, as x an explanatory principle, the fact of the 
synchronousness of Adam's sin with the sin and corruption of the 
race, and the synchronousness of our subjective ill-desert' and the 
imputation of the Adamic sin : truths with which no human in- 
tuitions can pretend to deal without evincing the most conceited 
arrogance. We are not unwilling, however, that Dr. Hodge, or 
any other nominalist (if they can without a sacrifice of gospel 
truth), should explain, if they are able, the modus of the moral 
and natural connection between Adam and his posterity ; 1 or that 
the philosophical realists, if they can, may solve the inquiry upon 
their hypothesis. But having abundantly witnessed the disastrous 
effects resulting from such endeavours in the past, we abjure them; 
and, irrespective of any theory on the subject, or of any attempted 
explication, we accept and rest upon the fact as divinely announced 
that the w T hole race truly sinned in and with our first parents in 
the fall. And we claim, moreover, that no exigency exists, or 
ever has existed, which renders such explanation necessary. It is 
not needed in order to an intelligent admission of the fact itself ; 
nor is it at all necessary (as will appear in a subsequent section), 
in order to apply that fact to all purposes, both doctrinal and 
practical. 

A late able writer, referring to the aforesaid position of Sir 
Isaac Newton in relation to the antagonism of Leibnitz, offers the 
following impressive remarks: "The law of gravitation, considered 
as a result, is beautifully simple, and in a few words it explains a 
fact from which most numerous and complex results may be 
deduced by mere reasoning, — results found invariably to agree 

1 See our article iD Southern Presbyterian Bevieiv for 1875, pp. 309, 310. 



68 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



with the records of observation; but the same law of gravitation, 
looked upon as an axiom or {irst principle, is so astoundinglv far 
removed from all experience as to be almost incredible." 1 

But there is, however, another and most instructive lesson which 
may likewise be learned from the example of Sir Isaac in this con- 
nection. While he continued to occupy the aforesaid ground, he 
stood firmly, and his position was impregnable. But after a 
lapse of years, he began to imagine that an explanation might be 
devised, and finally even allowed himself to seek for a philosophical 
solution of the modus itself; and the result was what might have 
been, even from his own previous admissions, easily anticipated. 
We shall, however, present the statement of this result in the 
words of Burke, 2 who united with the philosophical and scientific 
world generally in deploring the mistake of this truly great and 
excellent man. He says : " When Newton first discovered the 
property of attraction and settled its laws, he found that it served 
very well to explain several of the most remarkable phenomena in 
nature; but yet, with reference to the general system, of things, 
he could consider attraction but as an effect, whose cause at that 
time he did not attempt to trace. But when he afterwards began 
to account for it by a subtle, elastic sether, this great man (if in 
so great a man it be not impious to discover anything like a blem- 
ish) seemed to have quitted his usual cautious manner of philos- 
ophizing, since, perhaps, allowing all that has been advanced on 
the subject to be sufficiently proved, I think it leaves us with as 
many difficulties as it found us." 

True science, therefore, and true philosophy amply sustain the 
position which the Church has always maintained in relation to 
• the doctrine before us. And the attempt by denunciation and 
sarcasm to set that position aside can have little influence upon 
any really intelligent and considerate mind. 

1 See North British Review for March, 1868, page 125. 

2 Essay on the Sublime and Beautiful, Part IV., § 1, pp. 194, 195. 



PART II. 



WHEBEIN IS PBESENTED AND ILLUSTRATED THE MANNER 
IN WHICH THE DOCTRINE CONCERNING ORIGINAL SIN AND 
IMPUTATION HAS ALWAYS BEEN EXHIBITED BY THE RE- 
PRESENTATIVE DIVINES OP THE CHURCH. 



§ 9. The Order of Topics in Stating the Doctrine. 

DR. HODGE, as already remarked, claims that in the state- 
ment of the doctrine of original sin contained in our Cate- 
chism 1 there is to be recognized a logical presentation of the topics 
enumerated; that is, between the guilt of Adam's first sin (the 
jpeccatum alienum) and the loss of original righteousness both of 
himself and race. And, of course, that there is a causal connec- 
tion between his personal guilt and the corruption and spiritual 
death of his posterity. In a previous section, however, we have 
shown that the guilt or blameworthiness therein referred to is that 
of participation, and not the merely personal guilt of Adam. And 
that this fact is unquestionable will appear in the sequel. That 
the Westminster Assembly designed to teach no such causal con- 
nection between Adam's personal guilt and our own loss of original 
righteousness may be seen by the fact, if there were no other 
proof, that in the same immediate connection, as well as elsewhere, 
they affirm, as Ave shall show, such participation. Dr. Hodge's 
construction of the phrase, therefore, is not only without reason, 
but is a mere assumption, in conflict with the actual facts of the 
case. And although, so far as finding his theory in our standards 
is concerned, everything depends upon his showing that the inter- 
pretation of the phrase there employed is at least probable, he 
has contented himself with a mere peremptory assumption of its 
accuracy. It will be quite in place, therefore, before we proceed 
further in our argument, to illustrate at this point, by a brief ex- 

1 See the Westminster Assembly's Shorter Catechism, Question 18. 



70 



ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



ample, the manner in which the language referred to is understood 
and applied by Calvinistic divines in stating the doctrine ; and we 
shall cite an instance not unfamiliar to our churches. 

Fisher's Exposition of the Shorter Catechism (issued by our 
Board of Publication) was first published more than a century 
after that Catechism had been framed and adopted, and is the 
production of not only his own able pen, but likewise the result of 
the joint labors of the two Erskines, and of other eminent cotem- 
poraries in the Scottish church. In expounding the language of 
Question 18, (to- wit, " Wherein consists the sinfulness of that estate 
whereinto man fell?" — The sinfulness of that estate whereinto 
man fell consists in the guilt of Adam's first sin, the want of ori- 
ginal righteousness, and the corruption of his whole nature, which 
is commonly called original sin, together with all actual transgres- 
sions which proceed from it,") they say, "Original sin imputed is 
the guilt of Adam's first sin" (Quest. 3). " Guilt is an obligation 
to punishment on account of sin" (Rom. vi. 23) (Quest. 5 ;) and it is 
affirmed that " all mankind became guilty of the first sin by impu- 
tation" (Quest. 6). It is|then added, "And surely there can be no 
condemnation passed by a righteous judge where there is no crime" 
(Rom. vi. 15) (Quest. 10) ; and further on, that the Scriptures plainly 
prove Adam's posterity to be chargeable with his first sin (Quest. 
11). And then in Question 25, that native corruption is propa- 
gated by generation ; and that the soul of every one is a part of 
that person who is cursed in Adam. And finally, in Question 30, 
"that our state both of sin and misery is the bitter fruit of our 
own voluntary apostasy in the first Adam, as our covenant head, 
having sinned in him., and fallen with him hi his first transgres- 
sion." Such is their language employed in this exposition. And 
we need not dwell upon it further than to ask the reader to note 
that when (at Quest. 10) it is said, " And surely there can be no 
condemnation passed by a righteous judge where there is no 
crime," the design, of course, is not to vindicate the justice of the 
condemnation of our first parents, but that of their posterity for 
their then " voluntary apostasy" and hence that Adam's sin as 
imputed to them was their own crime not less than his, and as 
such was imputed for their condemnation. 

Now, the foregoing expository statement is as near an approxima- 
tion as can be found in our recognized theology to the theory which 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS. 



71 



Dr. Hodge has been inculcating as Calvinistic doctrine ;* and yet 
between the two there is truly a yaatxa >j.£ya over which no one may 
hope to pass; or, in other words, there is between them a total 
antagonism on the very issue now under discussion. The authors 
of this exposition affirm emphatically the subjective guilt of the 
race, and that Adam's first sin w T as also our voluntary apostasy or 
crime; all of which is as pointedly denied by Dr. Hodge, while 
he, at the same time, affirms that not the criminality was ours, 
but merely a putative guilt forensically charged upon us. They, 
moreover, affirm the existence of this common or subjective guilt 
in the very exposition they give of the phrase " Adam? s first sin." 
And as such, beyond all serious question, is the usage of that 
phrase in all Calvinistic theology, on what ground are we to admit 
the naked, and wholly unsustained assumption of Dr. Hodge that 
the guilt of Adam's first sin' here means merely the guilt of Adam 
alone in the first sin f 

In some unimportant affair a man might, without incurring 
rigorous censure, assume the truth of a representation not too 
hroadly in conflict with existing facts, and might also, by a pardon- 
able exercise of good nature, be excused for not offering proof, 
seeing he had none to give. But the case is widely different when 
the matter concerned is not unimportant; but, on the contrary, 
and as conceded and even affirmed by himself, is invested with 
surpassing interest to the truth of God, and to the well-being of 
His Church. Dr. Hodge, in total disregard of the manifest usage 
of the expression, and of the clearly ascertained meaning of every 
kindred expression touching the subject, assumes that the well- 
understood theological phrase, ; 'the guilt of Adam's first sin," 
is here employed to signify the guilt of Adam alone in the first 
-sin, — a meaning which, in such connection, it never bears in the 
exposition of our recognized or Augustinian doctrine. Our 
divines may, of course, speak of Adam's personal guilt in that sin, 
in distinction from the guilt of his descendants. But in defining 
the doctrine of original sin, they do not mean by "the guilt of 
Adam's sin" merely the personal guilt of Adam therein. Nor 
indeed could such a method of defining its meaning be possibly 
resorted to by any who entertain in its integrity the doctrine of 

1 See in § 13, A. No. 28, infra, a similar statement by Cluto, a justly cele- 
brated continental divine. 



72 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



the Church, since they all recognize the fact everywhere trans- 
parent in our theology, that Adam's guilt in that sin did not con- 
stitute the ivhole guilt of that sin. And, therefore, to assume such 
a position in such a discussion is as inexcusable as it is inadmissible. 

In another section there will be occasion to consider this as- 
sumption more at large than is permitted in the present connec- 
tion, and we shall there view it in the light of existing facts. 1 
Our intention here is to show, from the manner in which the Re- 
formed divines, when stating the doctrine of original sin, have 
always presented the topics — guilt and depravity — that they 
neither did nor could have entertained any such conception as 
Dr. Hodge insists upon, of a logical or causal relation between 
Adam's merely personal sin, or peccatum alienmn, and the de- 
pravity and death of the race. 

In our former essay we called attention to the fact adverted to 
above, that Dr. Hodge, in stating the doctrine of original sin as 
presented in the Shorter Catechism, makes everything to depend 
upon an assumed logical connection between Adam's merely per- 
sonal sin and the moral corruption of the race. 2 And we sug- 
gested to him that this assumption might be seen to be unfounded 
by the very words which, in the answer, precede those which he has 
quoted, to wit: "The sinfulness of that estate, whereinto man 
fell" as also in the answer to Question 16, "All mankind de- 
scending from him by ordinary generation sinned in him and fell 
with him in his first transgression ." 

It may be said without any exaggeration, that no assembly of 
men that was ever convened could have more carefully weighed 
the import of its published utterances than that of Westminster. 
Each term was duly considered, and the appropriateness and force 
of every expression, as well as its possible constructions. And this 
body of learned and wise and good men here announce, as a doc- 
trine of eternal truth, and one which had been fully recognized by 
the Church of God, that the race of man "sinned in and fell loitk 
Adam in his first transgression." And now, reader, put to your- 
self seriously the question, Can human language express an idea 
more directly at variance with this than to say, " they sinned only 
forensically or by imputation;" that is, that the personal sin of 

1 See Section 14, infra. 

2 See Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 167, 168, and also our § 6, above. 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS. 



73 



Adam, after it had been perpetrated, was forensically charged to 
his posterity. Could it by any conceivable possibility have been 
charged to their account anterior to its committal ? Even allowing, 
therefore, such a construction of the language as Dr. Hodge insists 
upon, their sin was not, and could not have been, coetaneous with the 
peccatum alienum or foreign sin of Adam, since that sin could be 
in no sense imputed to them until after it had been perpetrated 
by him. Is it not, then, a plain perversion of language to say that 
(such being the conceded circumstances), "they sinned in and fell 
with their father," when, in the very necessity of the case, they 
could not sin and fall until after he had sinned and fallen ; and es- 
pecially also in view of the fact that Dr. Hodge perpetually alleges 
that they were free from all sin and guilt until after they had in- 
curred the imputation of Adam's jieccatum alienum. f 

And then, still further. In the answer to Question 19, we are 
told that "all mankind by their fall lost communion with God," 
etc. E~o idea can be more plainly expressed. Is it possible, then, 
so to torture this language as to obtain from it the meaning that 
"all mankind, by the fall of another — by & peccatum alienum — lost 
communion," etc. ? Are not these expressions in direct antithe- 
sis ? But admitting, for the sake of the argument, that they may 
be reconciled, in what way, according to this theory, can it be said 
that all mankind sinned and fell at the time referred to ? Or even, 
allowing that the phrase " all mankind " might include all who 
have already lived, still they are not all mankind, and perhaps not 
a hundredth part of what will constitute the completed number of 
the race. In what way, then, may it be said, according to Di\ 
Hodge's theory, that they have sinned who, as he assures us, are 
as yet the merest nonentity ? In what w T ay has his " forensic im- 
putation" reached them, so as to justify his assertion that they 
were then constituted sinners ? Can that imputation be incurred 
by nonentities ? His theory, therefore, even as expounded by him- 
self, can in no sense allow that they who, as yet, have had no ex- 
istence, have already sinned and fallen. And yet our standards, 
with the inspired apostle himself, distinctly affirms that all the 
race veritably sinned in the first sin, and thereby were constituted 
sinners, and so lost communion with God. Dr. Hodge, however, 
denounces this as Pantheistic, impossible, and nonsensical ! Pru- 
dence, however, might certainly have suggested that it would have 



74 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



been better to spare such substitutes for argument until he should 
have at least attempted to explain how it is not absurd and non- 
sensical to maintain that nonentities may sin and fall and incur an 
imputation. His theory, therefore, is hopelessly irreconcilable 
with our standards, which plainly teach that the first sin was to 
the race a common sin. And hence, in Larger Catechism (Quest. 
26), they distinctly affirm that " original sin is conveyed from our 
first parents " (not from Adam alone, as Dr. Hodge's theory re- 
quires,) " unto their posterity by natural generation." The guilt 
being common, this could not be otherwise. But this also is de- 
nied by Dr. Hodge, who maintains that it is communicated by a 
forensic imputation alone. 1 

That the assembly of divines understood by the term guilt, as 
employed in this connection in both Catechisms, and also in the 
Confession, guilt by participation, is equally plain also from the 
fact that such was the usage of the term by their Calvinistic co- 
temporaries, both in England and on the Continent. Poole, 2 in 
"his Synopsis Criticorum, on Romans v. 12, presents clearly the re- 
cognized doctrine of the Church on the subject. He refers to 
Parens (of Heidelberg), who, on page 119 of his Commentary, has 
given the statement still more fully. As cited and endorsed by 
Poole, it is as follows: "There were three things in the first sin, 
1, Actual criminality (culpa) ; 2, Natural depravity, or a horrible 
deformity of nature ; 3, Legal guilt (reatus). And all these have 
come upon the posterity, not in one way, but in three. Criminality 
by participation (culpa participatione), because all were seminally 
in the loins of Adam; depravity by propagation, or generation, 
because Adam begat sons after his own image, not after the image 
of God; guilt by imputation, because grace was so granted to 
Adam that, if he should sin, his whole posterity along with him- 
self should be deprived of it ; as feudal grants are bestowed upon 
vassals, with the condition that should they forfeit them through 
crime, they involve their children in the same guilt." 

1 In support of this allegation Dr. Hodge makes the following assertion, 
which it is painful to be obliged to say is wholly unfounded : " The constant 
answer to the objection to the doctrine of creation derived from the transmis- 
sion of sin, made by the Reformed (nr Calvinistic) theologians, is that original 

Sin IS PROPAGATED NEQTJE PER CORPUS, NEQUE PER ANIMAM, SED PER CUL- 

pam." See Princeton Reuieiv for 1860 pp. 362, 367, 368, and Danville Re- 
view for 1861, p. 569. 2 Matthew Poole was born in 1624, and died in 1679. 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS. 



75 



Here, then, we have culpa, or criminality, first ; pravitas second ; 
and reatus, or exposure to punishment for crime, third ; as in the 
Catechism we have guilt, loss of original righteousness, and cor- 
ruption, which exposes to the penal justice of God. The Com- 
mentary of Pareus, at the time of the sessions of the Assembly, 
was in the highest repute amongst the English Calvinists; and 
James I. had greatly enhanced its popularity by ordering it to be 
burned at Oxford by the hangman, solely on account of its pointed 
assertion of human freedom, and of the right of the people to resist 
tyrannic rulers. 1 And the answer to question 18 of our Shorter 
Catechism appears to have been condensed from his admirable 
statement above cited, and which was everywhere current in the 
Church. 

To these eminent men we add a third, a cotemporary (who died 
in 1631), who presents the teaching of the Protestant Confessions 
succinctly (in the passage we shall cite) on the subject. We refer 
to Benedict Turrettin (father of Francis, the theologian), a great 
and venerated name in the family of Christ, and who, in referring 
to the same point, affirms that this very exposition is the doctrine 
of the Church as announced in her doctrinal symbols. When 
commenting on Romans v. 12, he, adverting to the Confessions of 
the Protestant Church, says: "Our Confessions include under 
original sin the participation (or communion) which we have in 
the first sin, and the loss of original righteousness and purity 
which we have sustained, and the inherent corruption of the soul." 
Such, then, is the expressed doctrine of the Protestant Church. 
And here, too, we have the same order and the same exposition in 
relation to the guilt of Adam's first sin as connected with original 
sin. It is our guilt by participation. " The communion which 
we have in the first sin." Dr. Hodge had seen this very testimony 
of Turrettin in the work of Pivetus, containing his " Testimonies 
on Imputation." 

We add, likewise, an instance or two from the English theolo- 
gians. Putherford (supralapsarian as he was) could not venture 
to depart from this representation. He was a member of the 
Westminster Assembly, and in his " Trial and Triumph of Faith," 

1 See Commentary of Dr. David Pareus on Romans xiii. 1-7, and likewise 
■the subjoinedtnarrative by his son Philip (in the edition of 1647), containing 
the history of that whole transaction 



76 



ORIGINAL SIX AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



for example, he says: "And truly it is bad divinity for Dr. Crispo 
to say, ' As we are actual, real sinners in Adam, so here God 
passeth really sin over to Christ;' for we sinned intrinsically in 
Adam, — as parts, as members, as being in his loins, — and we are 
thence by nature children of wrath." 

Dr. John Owen, another cotemporary, who, although not a 
member of the Assembly, has ever been esteemed as teaching the 
current doctrine of the Church on the whole subject, says: "There 
can be no liability to punishment, — obligatio ad poenam — where 
there is not desert of punishment, — dignitas pomce" " There can 
be no punishment, nor r eat us poence, the guilt of it, but where 
there is r eat us culpce, or sin considered with its guilt." 1 

These decided utterances all proclaim that the term guilt, as 
employed by our standards in the connection referred to, is guilt 
by participation ; so that the obvious meaning of the answer to 
Question 18 is, " Original sin consists of the guilt by participation 
of Adam's first sin, the loss of original righteousness,'' etc. This 
sense of the term in such connection being universally known and 
recognized by the Reformed church, the Assembly reasonably 
enough supposed that none could mistake or misunderstand it, and 
especially in view of their other statements remarked upon above, 
and therefore that there could be no occasion for overloading the 
sentence by the addition of superfluous words. And hence, if, as 
Dr. Hodge insists, the statement should be conceded to be logical,, 
it is a logical connection, not between Adam's personal sin and 
our loss of original righteousness, but between our mutual partici- 
pation or community with him in his sin, and the evils which have 
overtaken us through our fall. 

The fact that from the very first the Reformed church (as we 
reminded Dr. Hodge in the previous essay) has been wholly indif- 
ferent as to the order observed in stating the topics guilt and de- 
pravity in connection with the doctrine of original sin, — that is, 
whether they were stated in the order of guilt, depravity, death, 
or depravity, guilt, death, — is wholly subversive of the assumption 
of a logical or causal connection between Adam's peccatum 
alienum (as Dr. Hodge calls his merely personal sin) and the de- 
pravity of the race, and consequently subversive of the theory of 
gratuitous imputation. This we then illustrated and established 

1 On Justification (issued by our Board of Publication), page 222. 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS. 



77 



by reference to Calvin, the XXXIX. Articles, Beza, and other 
instances; and had Dr. Hodge but given due attention to this 
single fact, it must have secured him from any further attempt to 
establish as the doctrine of the Church a doctrine which she has 
ever decidedly repudiated, and from the mortifying failure of such 
attempt. "We called his attention to it, moreover, directly in view 
of his then recent assertions in the discussion with Dr. Baird. 
And he was fairly required, therefore, as it seems to us, by the 
demands of duty to the church whose ministry he was assisting to 
educate, to give the subject a full and candid consideration in any 
subsequent presentation he might offer of the doctrine; for he 
well knew, and had occasion to remember, how deep was the im- 
pression made by that essay on a large portion of the Church. He 
has, however, and doubtless for reasons which he considered suf- 
ficient, deemed it advisable to ignore that work, so far as any 
frank and scholarly reference to it is concerned. I shall now, 
therefore, proceed to restate and illustrate still more fully the fact 
itself, that so the Church may be able to take it thoroughly into 
consideration in forming a righteous estimate of the true nature 
of those efforts which are now being made to modify essentially 
this vital doctrine of her cherished faith, — a change which if ac- 
cepted, must ultimately and by inexorable logic carry with it an 
essential and fundamental modification of her whole doctrinal 
system, and more especially of those grand and precious features 
which give vitality and character to evangelical relioion, and in 
defence and vindication of which her sons have not only always 
stood foremost, but rejoiced to seal their testimony with their 
blood. Whether such a change could ever have been seriously 
contemplated by Dr. Hodge is immaterial to the question. For 
myself, I should most emphatically prefer any other solution. But 
the result is not the less certain in either case ; nor can that result 
be in any way determined or even regulated by his intentions. In 
his Theology some of those features have been preserved in their 
integrity by a logical inconsistency in the application of his prin- 
ciples; but should they who come after him prove consistent 
therein, the results of that consistency must clothe our Church in 
sackcloth for generations to come. 

We ought, perhaps, in this Secoxd Part of the work, to entreat 
the patience of our readers in regard to the numerousness of our 



78 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



citations of authorities ; but we trust that they will take into due 
consideration the fact that it now has become necessary to do full 
justice to the subject before us ; and while we shall carefully avoid 
any needless overloading of our pages, we must present a sufficiency 
of facts to resolve each question for the determination of which 
such appeal has become necessary. Occasionally we shall cite 
from the summary of testimonies contained in our previous dis- 
cussion, but for the most part these will be brief; and by referring 
to the more extended citations, as well as to the other authors- 
presented therein, and comparing them with those which are now 
adduced, our readers will perceive the cumulative nature of the 
argument. In the present tractate, moreover, we shall give more 
frequently than in the former our citations in the original language 
of the authors. It would greatly enlarge the volume to present 
both the original and translation of each passage; but deeming it 
highly important that our classically educated laymen, as well as 
the ministry, should possess for reference a fair proportion of the 
original documents, we shall present them, though at the same 
time taking care that the merely English scholar shall be able to 
perceive and understand the scope of the whole. 

The Citations. 

The Confessions of the evangelical churches are, for the most 
part, easily accessible to our readers, and we shall not, except in 
very few instances and by way of illustration, occupy our space 
with their testimony ; and in fact it would be but a work of super- 
erogation, in view of the full announcement of the leading divines 
of those communions, that the Confessions with one voice teach 
our participation with Adam in the first sin. 

1. The Marburg Colloquy, (1529.) 

This formula, after being carefully drawn up by the conjoint 
labors of Luther, Melancthon, Jonas, Zwingle, (Ecolampadius, 
Bucer and others, vjas subscribed by each. Its fourth article reads 
as follows : "We believe that original sin descends to us by birth 
and inheritance (hsereditaris a nobis per nativitatem trahi), from 
Adam, and that it is a sin which condemns all men, and that if 
Christ had not by His death and life delivered us, all would have 
eternally perished on account of it, nor ever have obtained the 
kingdom of God and eternal salvation." 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS CITATIONS. 79' 

P 

2. The XXXIX. Articles. 

The Calvinistic soundness of these articles has always been ad- 
mitted by the churches of the Reformation. Article IX. declares 
that "original sin is the fault and corruption of the nature of 
every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, 
whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is 
of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always 
contrary to the spirit ; and therefore in every person born into this 
world it deserveth God's wrath and damnation." Thus, in these 
early symbols the topics are all "clearly stated, but the order of 
their statement, which, according to Dr. Hodge's theory is every- 
thing, (as it must be, if designed to be in his sense of it logical,) 
is the reverse of his own, and the reverse of that which he claims 
interpretative^ to be the order in the Shorter Catechism. Instead 
of guilty depravity, death, it is depravity, guilt, death. Could 
language more directly exhibit the fact that the Church has ever 
regarded the guilt and depravity as synchronously existing, and 
never could have entertained such a conception as that the de- 
pravity is the penal consequence of Adam's personal sin ? 

3. Peter Martyr} 

The following passages will exhibit the views of this eminent 
reformer: 2 "Assuredly no one can doubt that original sin is in- 
flicted on us in revenge and punishment of the first fall, (nobis 
infligi in ultionem et pcenam primi lapsus.") He includes, of 
course, the whole race in the first fall, and hence employs the 
terms ultio and poena ; not to intimate that God would revenge on 
a guiltless race a peccatum alienum, as Dr. Hodge would have 
it, but that the race itself was criminal. Martyr entertained no 
such conception of the justice and moral character of God as this 
notion would imply. The revenge and punishment suffered by 
the race were therefore on account of its participation in the 
Adamic sin ; and hence he adds, " Adamo peccante proinde f uit ac 
si omnes peccantes adfuissent et sirnul cum eo peccavissent." 

Again, " Original sin is a depravation of the whole nature of man 
derived from our first parents to their posterity by generation." 

1 In our previous essay we presented brief, "biographical sketches of most of 
the eminent divines therein cited, and should do the same in the present work 
did not our limits forbid. 

2 See Commentary on Rom. i. and v. 12-19, and 1 Cor. xv. 22. 



80 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



And as was the fact with all the early reformers, he employs 
" original sin," in such connection, in the widest sense of the 
phrase, and as including both inherent and imputed sin, — both 
being derived to us by generation. He adds: "The efficient cause 
is the sinning will of Adam. When, therefore, the apostle seems 
to assert that the sin for which we are condemned is not another's, 
but our own, he means that t/ie sin of A dam was not so the sin of 
another, but that it teas ours also" Thus is Dr. Hodge's perni- 
cious conception of the peccatum aiienum in every form excluded 
and repudiated, and the moral and objective basis of the imputa- 
tion fully affirmed as the ground of the ultio and poena aforesaid. 

4. Musculus, (Wolfgang,) in like manner, declares that the first 
sin was not the sin of Adam alone ; that is, a sin in which he alone 
contracted subjective guilt, but our sin also in him; that is, the 
guilt of the principal, and the guilt of our own participation 
therein, were both laid to our charge. He says, " Some explain 
the word fj/iaprov (they sinned) to mean that we are condemned, or 
virtually constituted sinners on account of sin; but there is no 
reason why you should not thereby understand the actual sin of 
Adam in whom all that existed in his loins have sinned. For 
since w T e receive from Christ, not only this benefit, that we should 
be virtually justified by His obedience, but also this, that by the 
very actual obedience of Christ we obey the Father, as we are 
Christ's, so toe are not only virtually made sinners in Adam, but 
are condemned for this very sin of Adam. Whence the apostle 
declares, that by the offence of one, or the one offence, judgment 
came upon all men to condemnation." 

The distinction here so carefully drawn between our being vir- 
tually made sinners in Adam, (which recognizes our subject-de- 
pravity,) and being condemned for the very sin of Adam, may 
serve to evince how widely the theory of the gratuitous imputa- 
tion of sin departs from the Angustinian doctrine. Dr. Hodge 
can admit no such distinction, holding, as he does, that we are made 
sinners by being condemned as such on account of the personal sin 
of Adam. And yet, as we have seen, he endeavors in his state- 
ments to appropriate language somewhat similar, 1 and this, too, 
while he pointedly affirms that being made sinners in Adam, and 
being condemned for the sin of Adam, are one and the same thing, 

1 See Theology, Vol. II., pp. 202, 203, and compare our preceding §§ 4 and 5. 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS— CITATIONS . 



81 



and that the posterity of Adam had no subjective demerit what- 
ever when the condemnatory sentence passed upon them. He 
names them sinners in virtue of their federal and natural relation 
to Adam, and says they all sinned; but at the same time insists 
that they so sinned as to leave them free of any ill-desert or sub- 
jective guilt, they being entirely guiltless anterior to the sentence 
imputing to them Adam's personal sin. 

What intelligible idea such a statement is intended to convey, 
would, as it seems to us, require the Sphinx to determine, and to 
undertake to name it "the federal system" and the doctrine of our 
Church is, in every view that can be taken of the case, simply pre- 
posterous. And it is, moreover, not a little noteworthy that this 
should be soberly insisted on in close proximity to his assault upon 
the Church doctrine of participation as impossible and nonsensical. 
But (as I trust I may add without offence), that the posterity 
should sin in and with their father, and so become sinners ; and 
yet, that while he in that sin became fearfully corrupt, they should 
in themselves remain perfectly incorrupt and free from all guilt 
and criminality, and without any subjective ill-desert demanding 
punishment until after his peccatum alienum had been charged 
upon them, is certainly hardly in accordance with the Scriptures, 
or with the "criteria and intuitions" referred to in the preceding 
section. And we really think that there is no illiberality in sug- 
gesting that they who can grasp so as to comprehend such pro- 
positions, ought not to find any very serious obstacle in the way of 
accepting the Church doctrine that all the race veritably sinned, 
and became subjectively guilty in our first parents. 

5. Calvin. 

"Original sin, therefore, appears to be a hereditary depravity 
and corruption of our nature, diffused through all parts of the 
soul, rendering us obnoxious to the Divine wrath, and producing 
in us those works which the Scriptures call the works of the flesh." 1 
Here, too, the topics are presented in an order the reverse of Dr. 
Hodge's, and we have depravity, guilt, death. If, then, a logical 
or causal connection is to be attributed to the statement of the 
topics in Calvinistic theology, and Adam's first sin means Adam's 
peccatum alienum or personal sin only, under what category is 
Calvin to be placed ? He certainly was no Calvinist, if this theory 

1 Institutio, lib. II:, cap. 1, § 8. 

6 



82 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of gratuitous imputation is Calvinistic. Can anything, then, be 
plainer, than that the Church of the Reformation never attached 
to that merely personal sin a causal relation to the depravity of 
the race ? 

Again, Calvin, when referring to Pighius, Catharinus, and other 
Papal theologues, who contended that only the guilt of Adam's 
personal sin was imputed to the race f orensically, and thus became 
the cause of their inherent sin, remarks: " We are not condemned 
by imputation alone, as though the punishment of another'' s sin 
were exacted of us ; but we therefore endure its punishment because 
we also are guilty of the offence so far as this, that our nature, 
vitiated in him, is regarded as guilty of iniquity before God." 1 
And again, in his Institutes he says: "We have already proved 
that original sin is the pravity and corruption of our nature, which 
first makes us guilty of the wrath of God, and then also brings 
forth in us those works which the Scriptures call the works of the 
flesh." 2 These passages may suffice from this unequalled theolo- 
gian. 

6. Beza. In his note on Rom. v. P2, he says: "Duo sunt in 
peccato originis. 1. Corruptio quae tollitur sanctificatione, &c. 2. 
Jteatus; de quo hie proprie agitur cui opponitur imputatio obedien- 
tim Christi." Here, too, in this emphatic statement of the doctrine, 
corruption is first, and guilt second. Again: "Two things should 
be taken into consideration in regard to original sin, guilt and cor- 
ruption (reatus et corruptio), which, although they cannot be sep- 
arated, yet ought to be accurately distinguished." In this latter 
citation the order is the reverse of that in the preceding, and both 
statements are given in the same note. Can any one, therefore, in 
view of such a fact, even imagine that Beza could have regarded 
the topics as logically or causally related, and so making at first 
the corruption causal of the guilt, and then immediately afterwards 
the guilt causal of the corruption ? What, then, is the value of Dr. 
Hodge's assumption? But in the latter citation Beza gives the 
ground of this variation in statement : " The two," says he, " can- 
not be separated (quae non possunt separari), as they, of course, 
could be, if Dr. Hodge's theory were true, which makes the one 
causal of the other : that is, the guilt of Adam's peccatum alieuum 
causal of the moral corruption of the race, or as they could be if 
1 Comment, in Rom. v. 17. 2 Lib. iy. cap. 15, § 10. 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS 



, CITATIONS. 



83 



the counter theory of Placaeus were true, which makes inherited 
corruption causal of the imputation. 

Again, says Beza: "Tria sunt quae hominem constituunt reum 
coram Deo. 1. Culpa promanans ex eo quod omnes peccavimus in 
protoplasto. (Rom. v. 12.) [Here is the aforesaid culpa partici- 
patione.] 2. Corruptio qute est pcena istius culpae imposita tarn 
Adamo quam posteris. iHeb. ix., 27.) 3. Peccata quae perpetrant 
homines adulti, suntque fructus," tfcc. 1 

7. Danceus, the colleague of Beza, adopts (in a work of his 
with the same title), this language, word for word: "There are 
three things which constitute a man guilty before God: 1. The 
criminality flowing from this, that we have all sinned in the first 
man. 2. Corruption, which is the punishment of this sin which 
fell alike upon Adam and his seed. 3. The sins which adult men 
commit, and which are fruits brought forth by this root of corrup- 
tion, of which we are guilty before the judgment of God. 2 

It will be obseiwed by the reader that in all these passages the 
demerit or subjective guilt of the posterity is affirmed to be the 
same as the subjective desert of their first parents. 

8. Zanchius, in like manner, affirms our subjective guilt and the 
imputation of the Adamic sin. In his De Peccato he says: '-'Be- 
cause the whole human race, which is propagated by natural gen- 
eration from Adam, were in his loins, hence the precept with its 
penalty was not addressed to the person of Adam alone, but per- 
tained likewise to the whole human race. Therefore we believe 
and confess with the apostle, that in sinning Adam all men sinned, 
so that that disobedience was not peculiar to Adam, but teas the 
common (disobedience) of the whole human race, since his guilt 
has involved all men naturally descended from his loins." Though 
a supralapsarian, this eminent divine thus fully sustains the de- 
clared doctrine of the Beformed theology, that we in Adam, as in 
our origin, became veritably guilty, and that his sin and our own 
participation therein are imputed to us for condemnation. 

9. Whittaker, with all his supralapsarian proclivities, never at- 
tempted, as Bighius and Catharinus (the leading supralapsarians of 
the papal and scholastic school) did, to explicate the doctrine from 
the standpoint of imputation alone, or to make Adam's merely per- 
sonal sin causal of our guilt and condemnation. In fact, he, as 

1 Apologia pro justificatione. 2 Apologia pro justificatione. 



84 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



shown in our former work, denounces severely those who do this, 
and who, by making inherent sin the effect of the forensic imputa- 
tion of Adam's personal sin (as did the papal theologues referred 
to) do really, in the judgment of the Reformed Church, place orig- 
inal sin in imputation alone, agreeably to the everywhere ac- 
knowledged canon, — causa causce est etiam causa causati. He 
says: "Original sin is inherent and native depravity, but the ac- 
tual free transgression of Adam is imputed to us. For we should 
neither be held under the guilt or depravity thence contracted, un- 
less that act by which Adam violated the divine precept was as- 
cribed to us by imputation. But in regard to that, some scholastic 
theologians place original sin in imputation alone ; in this they 
basely and nefariously err." These theologians never denied 
the existence of inherent sin in us, or in human nature ; but by 
making it the penalty of Adam's peccatum alienum, and denying 
its transmission by generation (and this is precisely the theory of 
Dr. Hodge), they clearly ascribed it to imputation alone. They 
taught that its existence was transmitted only per culpam; or, as 
Szydlovius expresses it, " JVeque per corpus, neque per animam, sed 
per imputationem" 1 

10. Sohnius states the order of topics as follows: " Original sin, 
as w x ell in Adam as in his posterity, includes three deadly evils, — 
the demerit, the guilt or liableness to punishment, and the de- 
pravity or corruption of nature The first sin of Adam, 

therefore, as we said before, must be viewed in a double aspect. 
In one respect it was the sin of Adam, and was not original sin, 
but actual, originating — that is, giving origin to the original sin 
of his posterity. In another respect it was the sin of his posterity, 
who were in his loins, so that, in ?nass, they committed the same 

Sin, AND HENCE IT WAS IMPUTED TO THEM ALL He (the 

apostle) does not say in this place (Romans v. 12) that guilt had 
entered, hut that sin had entered, into the world. And this is not 
left to be inferred, but is expressly asserted in the same verse, — 
'in whom, all have sinned? Moreover, when he declares that all 
are subject to death and condemnation by the sin of one, it is a 
just inference that all were partakers of his sin, and are born in a 
state of moral pollution. In the nineteenth verse it is said, ' By 

1 See the Danville Review for 1861, page 569 ; also the Princeton Review for 
1860, pp. 362, 367, 368. 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS. CITATIONS. 



85 



the disobedience of one, many are constituted sinners.' Now, to 
be constituted sinners includes the idea, not only of being made 
subject to the penalty (as the Papal divines whom he was answer- 
ing had asserted), but partaking of the nature of sin ; for they who 
are entirely free from sin cannot icith propriety be called sinners" 

And now let our readers for themselves endeavor to imagine a 
more direct antagonism to both the exegesis and doctrine which 
Dr. Hodge has been inculcating as the doctrine of our Church 
than is here advanced by this illustrious reformer, (successor to 
Ursinus iu the theological chair at Heidelberg,) and we think they 
will concede it to be impossible. The views here presented by 
Sohnius were always the received doctrine of the Calvinistic church, 
and yet Dr. Hodge rejects them as Pantheistic and nonsensical ! 
Is this the way, then, to impart to our youth a due respect for the 
recognized doctrines of Calvinism? 

11. Our next citation shall be from the Synopsis Purioris 
Theologee, by the Leyden divines (anno 1624), the design of 
which was, by means of a brief and lucid statement, to correct the 
misrepresentations which the then flourishing sects of the Socinians 
and Remonstrants had been making of the evangelical system of 
grace and salvation. And our readers may observe how, in the 
very face of all the denunciation and sarcasm of those bigoted 
sectaries (to which we shall have occasion to advert in another 
section), these eminent and learned men deliberately reiterate the 
doctrine of the Church. We will first present a very brief analy- 
sis of their statement, and then, as above remarked, shall give it 
in the original language. 

The term dvofita, which is here used, and also very frequently 
employed in such connection by the Reformed theologians (and in 
the strictly scriptural (see 1 John hi. A) and likewise classical 
sense of iniquity, injustice, disregard of lav: \, is the antithesis of 
8ixatoGuvr h and is so employed here by these divines. They name 
original sin such from the defection in the loins of Adam of all 
who are naturally begotten of him, whereby they became corrupt, 
averse to all good, and so prone and inclined to evil as to have in- 
curred the displeasure of God and become exposed to eternal death. 
The whole race was hidden in the loins of Adam (as Levi was in 
Abraham when typified in him) and sinned together with him. The 
sin or crime, therefore, was universal, and is derived to all through 



86 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



generation, (for the threatening in Genesis ii. 17, "in the day thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt die" was addressed to all), and it was con- 
sequently imputed by God justly to the posterity. Sueli is the 
main idea here presented, and which we now give in their own 
words. 

They say : " Ad rem quod attinet Peccatum Originale definimus 
dvofiiav sen vitiositatem haereditariam ; ex defectione omnium homi- 
num naturali modo ab Adamo propagator urn in ipsius primi 
parentis lumbis factam : quae toti quanti sunt, corrupti, eoque ab 
omni bono aversi, et ad omne malum tantum propensi et inclinati, 
rei sunt irae Dei et morti aeternae obnoxii." 

a Efficiens hujns peccati causa est primorum parentum lapsus, 
quo justo Dei judicio reatus pravitas naturae attracta est, et in 
totam posteritatem transfusa. Quia enim in Paradiso duplicam 
Adam gerebat personam, cum suam ipsius, turn totius posteritatis 
cujus sustinebat massam; etiam % peccatum ejus geminum habuit 
respectum ; turn ad ipsum, et sic erat personalis et actualis ipsius 
transgressio, non proprie originalio sed originans, seu originem 
praebens omnibus aliis et peccatorum effectibus: turn ad to turn 
posteritatis genus, quod in lumbis ejus latens una peccabat, ut 
Levi decimatus fuit, dum esset in lumbis Abrahami patris sui, 
(Heb. vii., vers. 8 et 9,) et ita fuit universalis culpa seu peccatum 
universale et naturae totius vel speciei, in omnes homines genera- 
tione derivandum ad quos in Adamo sententia ilia directa ftierat, 
Quacumque die comederis de fructu, etc. Morte morieris. (Gen. 
ii. IT.}" 

" Forma peccati originalis consistit in dvo/jJa ilia et inobedientia, 
qua, cum Adamo peccaverunt omnes qui in eo fuerunt secundum 
ration em, et vocant, seminalem ; quae inobedientia et culpa cum 
reatu consequente, juste a Deo judice omnibus Adami filiis impu- 
tatur quatenus omnes fuerunt et sunt unus cum eo. Si vero con- 
sideretur id quod in homine post actum remanet et verarn peccati 
rationem habet, unde proprie et formaliter homo dicitur peccator, 
nihil est aliud quam depravatio ilia et deformitas totius humanae 
naturae, quae conformitate cum Deo amissa, labes, et foedissima 
omnium hominis partium corruptio, successit. 

" Non igitur significanter satis vim hujus peccati expresserunt, qui 
earn tantum in justitia originalis carentia constituerunt ; quae per 
illud, natura nostra non tantum boni inops est, sed etiam malorum 



THE ORDER OF TOPICS. — -CITATIONS. 87 

omnium adeo fertilis et ferax, ut otiosa esse non possit. Itaque 
corruptionis hujus duas partes cum Scriptura agnoscimus, nempe 
defectum et privationem boni, et pravam ad malum inclinationem ; 
<ium prseter ignorantiam in mente, et aversionem a Deo in corde, 
h?eret in omnibus pronitas ad sapiendum et faciendum ea quae lege 
Dei prohibentur. Hinc quidam e nostris, fomitem peccati non 
esse absque actuali peccato, imo peccatum actuale esse dixerunt; 
quod tizupws quidem dictum, in calumniam tamen non debuit ab 
adversariis trahi, cam nihil aliud voluerint quam peccatum hoc et 
esse actu, et actuosum etiam et operosum, utne in parvulis quidem 
quiescat, quin vitios motus excitet." 1 

They conclude with the following from Bernard : " The crime 
{culpa) is another's, because we have all unconsciously sinned in 
Adam. It is our own, because, although in another, we neverthe- 
less have sinned, and by the just, though secret, judgment of God 
it is imputed to us." 

12. Pareus. (Dr. David, of Heidelberg.) 

We have already referred to this remarkably able divine in con- 
nection with Poole, and we add here a brief passage in his own 
words. He says that the evils which Adam brought upon himself 
by his sin " all came at the same time, or simultaneously, upon his 
offspring, not in one way, but in a threefold manner, to-wit : par- 
ticipatione culpce, iikputatione reatus, propagatione naturalis pra- 
vitatis — by participation of the crime — because all his posterity 
were seminally in the loins of Adam. They therefore all sinned 
in Adam when he sinned," — thus making the imputation to be 
that of our participated criminality. (See his Commentary on 
Romans v. 12.) 

And now T , in view of these few testimonials (few in comparison 
of the many we are prepared to allege,) from those truly learned 
divines, will any serious man pretend to say that there was not 
present to the minds of Pareus, Poole, Turrettin, Calvin, Pi- 
vetus, and of the hosts of others who announce and reiterate that 
the posterity of Adam participated with him in the first sin, all 
the so-named reasons upon which Dr. Hodge has so ungraci- 
ously ventured to denounce that doctrine as impossible, Pantheis- 
tic, and nonsensical ? They knew full well every part and particle 

1 Disput. XV., §§ 10, 11, 24, 25, pp. 151, 152, 157, 158 (Editio quarto), 
Leyden, 1652.' 



88 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of those asserted reasons, and had met with them, as perpetually 
alleged by Jesuits, Socinians, Kemonstrants, and others, against the 
same grand truth ; and yet, in f ull view of all the efforts of those 
sectaries to throw it out of the discussion as an absurd and unde- 
batable proposition, these truly venerable and godly men come 
forth and thus reannounce the doctrine as their own cherished 
and deliberate view of the teaching of the Bible, and as the the- 
ology of their doctrinal symbols. 

We omit other citations as unnecessary, and conclude the sec- 
tion with a brief remark on the bearing of this branch of the argu- 
ment. 

Dr. Hodge's scheme of gratuitous imputation, to which he has 
presumed to apply the sobriquet of " the federal system" depends, 
as we have shown, on his assumption of a logical order, or causal 
relation in the topical statement, Adam's personal guilt and the 
depravity or spiritual death of the race ; that is, he assumes that 
there is a causal connection between Adam's sin — the peccatum 
alienum — and the inherent sin of his posterity. But, as the fore- 
going citations all evince, the Calvinistic church repudiates any such 
connection, and thus ignores the principle which is fundamental 
to his theory. They evince, moreover, that when she does speak 
of guilt or criminality as producing the inherent or hereditary cor- 
ruption of the race, the reference is not by any means to the guilt 
of Adam only, but to the guilt also of his posterity by participation 
in the same sin, which participation has rendered the whole race 
subjectively criminal. They make no attempt to explain the 
modus of the participation, for they regard the fact itself as inex- 
plicable. In our previous discussion we presented the same posi- 
tion and illustrations, together with many of the preceding 
authorities, which, however, had no effect upon Dr. Hodge, ex- 
cept to draw from him the unfortunate attempts at denunciation 
and sarcasm to which we have referred. 1 We have not retorted, 
nor shall we. And though it was not unnatural for us to feel that 
such usage was not calculated to allay or soothe the just sense of 
wrong which is common in like cases, we were assured that Dr. 
Hodge- has more to regret than we could possibly have from this 
procedure. When he ventured, therefore, to denounce such par- 

1 See especially his Review of Dr. Baird's Elohim Revealed, Princeton Re- 
view for April, 1860, and his Revised Commentary on Romans (issed in 1866). 



GOD S PUNITIVE JUSTICE CITATIONS 



SO 



ticipation as impossible, and to deride it as nonsensical, was he, or 
was he not, aware that he was thus treating the recognized and 
sacred doctrine of the Church whose theology he had been em- 
ployed to teach to her rising ministry ? This question is eminently 
pertinent in whatever way he may answer it. But we have no 
disposition to press the point. 

The foregoing citations, evincing what were the views of the 
Church in regard to the order of topics, are abundantly sufficient 
to demonstrate that the theory of gratuitous imputation of sin is 
fundamentally at war with the Augustinian theology. But the 
subject, as it now stands related to our own Church in this country, 
is far too important to be allowed to rest here, and we therefore 
invite our readers to a further consideration of it from other and 
not less important points of view. 

§ 10. The Church Doctrine ox the Relation which the Puni- 
tive Justice of God Sustains to His Creatures. 

In section six, above, we have pointed out the ^conclusiveness 
of Dr. Hodge's endeavor to trace an analogy between the instances 
which he cites in the illustration and enforcement of his argument, 
to-wit: between the punishment of Adam's sinless offspring (as his 
theory affirms them to have been) for his personal sin, and the 
punishment of the sinful progeny of Esau, Korah, and others, for 
their parents' sin : and we shall now proceed to define and illus- 
trate the doctrine of the Calvinistic church in relation to punish- 
ment and ill-desert. 

That doctrine is nowhere doubtfully expressed, either in her 
standards or approved theology, in both of which it is fully taught 
that the actual ill-desert of the creature invariably precedes the 
penal exactions of divine justice. By his theory Dr. Hodge is, as 
we have shown, obliged to repudiate this principle, infixed as it is 
in the very centre of man's moral nature ; and in order to justify 
himself in such repudiation he affirms that it is subversive of the 
whole doctrine of redemption through our Lord Jesus Christ, inas- 
much as He, though perfectly innocent and holy, did endure the 
Divine wrath or inflictions of punitive justice in their most un- 
mitigated severity. But the endeavor to draw into the argument 
the expiatory work of our adorable Redeemer, who was no creature, 
and who voluntarily became sin and a curse for us, evinces only the 



90 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



•extremity to which a conscious lack of support has reduced his 
theory. Dr. Hodge will not venture the assertion that, irrespec- 
tive of the assumption of our legal relation to divine justice, our 
sins either were or could be imputed to the Redeemer. And he 
is therefore obliged practically to concede that there is really no 
analogy between making a punitive exaction of an innocent crea- 
ture, who has never assumed or in any way incurred the liability, 
and making a punitive exaction of one who has willingly and even 
joyfully incurred it. 1 The instance of our blessed Redeemer, 
therefore, can bear no actual relation to the merits of the question 
before us. And consequently, if the foregoing statement presents 
(and we claim that it does present) an accurate expression of the 
recognized views of the Church, no words are needed to evince 
that Dr. Hodge's theory is in deadly conflict with her cherished 
doctrine. Gur citations shall be as brief as a fair presentation of 
the case will allow. 

The Citations. 

1. Calvin says: "For if predestination is no other than a dis- 
pensation of divine justice — mysterious indeed, but liable to no 
blame — since it is certain that they were not unworthy of being 
predestinated to that fate, it is equally certain that the destruction 
they incur by predestination is consistent with the strictest justice. 
Besides, their perdition depends on the divine predestination in 
such a manner that the cause and matter of it are found in- them- 
selves.^ "In the next place we maintain that they act preposter- 
ously, who, in seeking for the origin of their condemnation, direct 
their views to the secret recesses of the divine counsel, and overlook 
the corruption of nature which is its real source" " We confess 
the guilt (noxam) to be common, but we say that some are re- 
lieved by divine mercy." 2 

Can our readers reconcile these, and a thousand similar utter- 
ances of this pre-eminent theologian, with the supposition that he 
acknowledged a prerogative in God to pronounce and treat of His 
mere will and pleasure the iimocent as guilty, or the just as un- 
just f 

1 Owen, in a passage to be cited in the sequel, expresses the true doctrine 
of Calvinism on this point as follows: "Sin, imputed by itself alone, without 
an inherent guilt, was never punished in any but Christ." 

2 Institut., Lib. III., cap. 23, §§ 8, 9, 11. 



GOD S PUNITIVE JUSTICE. CITATIONS. 



91 



2. Charnock. 

" God cannot pollute any undefiled creature by virtue of that 
sovereign power which He has to do what He will with it, be- 
cause such an act would be contrary to the foundation and right 
of His dominion." 1 

3. Ames, in the eleventh chapter of his " Medulla" thus applies 
the same principle in what the Socinians and Arminians of his day 
denounced as an extremely absurd statement: "In ordering the 
event (of the fall) as to man, two things are to be considered, 
d-Tzoaraaiq and wmaraai^^ — man's fall and his restoration. (Horn, 
v. 19 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22.) In the angels there was a preservation of 
some and an apostasy of others, but no restoration of those who 
had apostatized. In man, however, there could not be together 
both preservation and apostasy, because all men were created in one 
Adam, as in a beginning, root and head ; but some could not be pre- 
served from the fall, and others fall, in one and the same Adam." 

Then in Chapter XII., he says: "Punishment is an evil inflicted 
upon the sinner for his sin. It is called an evil, because it is a 

privation of good It is said to be an evil inflicted, not 

merely contracted, because it pertains to rewarding and avenging 
justice. It is said to be inflicted on account of sin, because it 
always has respect and order to the desert of sin (ad meritum 
peccati) ; to which punishment follows from the offence by reason 
of the prohibition, and from the guilt by reason of the threaten- 
ing. Therefore punishment in the proper sense of the term (poena 
proprie dicta) has no place except in intelligent creatures, in vjhom 
sin also is found." 

4. Hoornbeck, in his Instit. T/ieologice? cites and. adopts this 
latter passage as explaining his own views of the same great truth. 
'Nov can language evince more clearly that these divines enter- 
tained no such conception as that which Dr. Hodge has so in- 
juriously and rashly charged upon them, to- wit : that God claims 
and exercises the prerogative to visit with punitive and avenging 
justice the creature when not already subjectively deserving of the 
-curse. 

5. Maresius, in his Theologia, repeats the same view: "Guilt 

discourse X., " On the Attributes." The whole discourse should be read 
in connection with our argument. 
2 Cap. VII., § XL, page 229. 



92 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



is an obligation to punishment arising out of sin and transgression. 
Some inaccurately define it as the essence of sin itself; but the 
essential matter of sin is the violation of law itself, which pro- 
duces defilement and guilt. This guilt follows sin It 

therefore arises out of crime and precedes punishment. As to its. 
result it pertains to the punishment ; as to its source to the crime." 
" The crime, in fact, is not only the antecedent cause of the guilt, 
but also the recipient subject of it." 

In the second of his Dissertationes, in reply to Curcellpeus, (De 
Peccato Originis,) he presents the same views, and, greatly to the 
disgust of the Arminian professor, makes the following applica- 
tion of the aforesaid explanatory principle : "I concede that they 
who are without either understanding or guilt are likewise with- 
out sin proper and personal. Still it does not follow from thence 
that they are without hereditary and common sin. For both idiots 
and infants being naturally propagated from Adam, they all sin- 
ned in him and contracted the guilt of death." 

The patience of the Arminian quite breaks down at the utter- 
ance of an absurdity so "unthinkable" (as Baur and Dr. Hodge 
have named it), and he begins his response in the following terms 
not at all remarkable for classic chasteness and propriety : " Sed 
crassa Professoris hujus ignorantia se in omnibus istis aperte 
prodit." And further on, in showing that Maresius must have 
overrated the effects of the first sin, he (without informing us how 
many swallows it really does require to make spring) gives force 
to his argument by the following philosophical and pertinent 
analogy : " Sicut enim una hirunda non facit ver, ita neque una 
actio habitum parit." 1 

John Henry Heidegger, in his exposition of the doctrine of 
original sin, affirms the same explanatory principle in vindication 
of the justice of God in its treatment of the posterity of Adam,, 
and affirms that God adjudges the posterity of Adam as impli- 
cated with him in his sin, and therefore treats them as sinners. 2 
And in his Dissertatio de Concordia Potest, § 51 (as cited by 
J. A. Turrettin in Nubes Testium, he asserts that in every case the 
cause of blame of perdition is to be sought, not in God, but in 
men themselves: "Omnis perditionis causa vel culpa, non in Deo,, 

1 Opera Gurcellcei, pp. 904, 905, (Amsterdam, 1675.) 

2 Cited largely in De Moor, Vol. III., pp. 277, 270. 



GOD'S PUNITIVE JUSTICE. CITATIONS. 



93 



sed in hominibus queerenda sit." Could there be a more direct 
disavowal of the notion that God pronounces the just unjust? 

Wall^us, in his reply r to the Arminian theologue, Corvinus, 
says: "The guilt of the first sin to condemnation (and as the 
apostle Paul speaks in Rom. vi. 16, xpt/ia efc xardxpi/j.a) : cannot he im- 
puted to posterity unless that vitiosity of inherent sin intervene; 
since the justice o f God ivill not permit that the first sin should he 
imputed for condemnation to a posterity having no sin in them- 
selves.^' 2 Corvinus denied just as strongly as Dr. Hodge our par- 
ticipation in the first sin, and affirmed the dogma of gratuitous 
imputation, and this is the reply he receives. Walleeiis was a 
colleague of Pivetus in the Leyden University, and had been ap- 
pointed by the Synod of Dort to draw up its canons. And now, 
„ reader, decide for yourself. Can language convey a more direct 
and definite affirmation than that which is here given of the great 
explanatory principle of the Calvinistic church in explication of 
the doctrine of original sin, or utter a more thorough repudiation 
of the gratuitous imputation theory of Dr. Hodge ? 

8. Molix^eus. (Peter du Moulin.) 

This pre-eminent theologian, and most learned and excellent 
man, stood in the front rank of the Calvinistic divines during the 
first half of the seventeenth century, and received the thanks of the 
Synod of Dort for his able defence of Calvinistic doctrine. In his 
JEuodat. Quest, de Peccato Origi?iali, he says : " Nor indeed would 
God impute the sin of Adam, to his posterity, unless they had in 
themselves something which was truly of the nature of sin, and 
unless they were evil hy nature." 1 

I repeat here the inquiry : Can any serious man, in the light 
of such declarative statements, even imagine that these represen- 
tative divines of the Church could have entertained the theory of 
the gratuitous imputation of sin ; that is, that God may pronounce 
a guiltless creature guilty, morally corrupt, or unjust, and then 
treat him as such ? 

Again, in his Anatome Arminianismi, and referring especially 
to the relation sustained by God's punititive justice to the crea- 
tures of his hand, he says : " Estque damnatio actus divinae justi- 
tise, quae sibi constare non posset, si homo innocens et nullum ob 

1 Opera Wallsei, Tom. III., p. 151, column 2. (Leyden, 1643.) 
1 Cited by Rivetus in his Testimonies on Imputation. 



94 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



culpam destinaretur ad desertionem, ex qua seterna perditio neces- 
sario consequeretur. Quod si Deus, insontem creaturam destina- 
vit, ad perditionem, necesse est eandem destinaverit ad peccatum 
sine qua ? ion potest esse justa per ditto, et sic Deus erit causa im- 
pulsiva peccati. Nec homo poterit juste puniri oh peccatum, ad 
quod est aut proecise destinatus, aid Dei voluntate compulsus" 
(Capite IX.) That is, in brief, they who advocate such a doctrine 
cannot possibly avoid the consequence of making God the impel- 
ling cause of sin. 

9. Wendeline. (Marcus Frederick.) 

This excellent theologian treats as follows the sentiment that 
God, of his mere prerogative, can pronounce and treat the just as 
unjust. He is expounding the doctrine of reprobation, and says : 
" The end is the declaration of Divine justice in punishing sin. 
I. This appears from the testimony of Scripture. (Rom. xiv. 17, 
22.) (He cites the verses.) Therefore God does not destine the 
reprobate to sin forasmuch as he finds sin in them, but to the, 
punishment of sin. II. From what we have said of the causes of 
this reprobation, it appears what grievous calumniators our adver- 
saries are, who now attribute to us a decree of reprobation so abso- 
lute that in it there is plainly no respect had to sin as the cause of 
the decree of damnation. Our unvarying doctrine is this : that as 
God condemns no one in time except on account of sin, so also he 
decreed from eternity to condemn no one except on account of sin, 
which, in the Synod of Dort, was solemnly promulgated 7' 1 

10. Turrettin (Francis), when speaking on the topic before us,, 
says: "2. Because all die in Adam (1 Cor. xv. 22), that is, con- 
tract the guilt of condemnation and death, therefore they sinned 
also in the same, and are held with him in a common criminality. 
For no one can, in any respect, deserve the punishment of death 
unless he should have with him and in him that comm.on sin which 
is the cause of death.. It does not suffice to say that we all die in 
Adam efficiently, inasmuch as we derive from Adam original sin, 
which is the cause of death; because, by the same reason, we 
might say that we die in our parents and ancestors, from whom 
we immediately derive sin, which yet the Scripture never asserts, 
but from Adam only, inasmuch as we were in him in a peculiar 
manner, not only in a seminal principle, but also as in a represen- 

1 Theol. Christ., lib. I., cap. 4, Thes. 6, page 177. (Leyden, 1658.) 



GOD'S PUNITIVE JUSTICE. CITATIONS. 



95 



tative head ; and so we are said to have sinned in him, not only 
by reason of efficiency, since he is the cause from v:ldch sin is pro- 
pagated to us, but also by reason of demerit, inasmuch as his fault 
draws guilt upon us, in the same mode in which all are in like 
case said to be vivified in Christ, not only efficiently through the 
vivifying Spirit, but likewise meritoriously, through the imputa- 
tion of His righteousness." 1 

The latter part of this passage has been misconceived by some, 
who seem unwilling that Turrettin himself should explain it. He 
has done so very fully and repeatedly in subsequent parts of his 
work, wherein, referring, for instance, to the analogy in Romans 
v. 12-19. he says: "Xor yet. if Adam has even constituted us un- 
just effectively through propagation of inherent vitiosity, on ac- 
count of which we are also guilty of death before God. would it 
likewise follow that Christ constitutes us righteous through a 
forensic justification of the judgment of God by inherent right- 
eousness given to us by Himself; beca/use the scope of the apostle, 
which alone is to be regarded, does not tend to that; but he aims 
only to lay open the foundation of the participation (communionis) 
of guilt to death and of the right to life (from our union with the 
first and second Adam) as to the thing, although the mode is di- 
verse on account of the diversity of the subject:' 2 

11. Ryissexius. 

This careful and esteemed theologian ('who is sometimes quoted 
by Dr. Hodge in other connections), when discussing the question, 
"Whether God may deprive an innocent creature, not only of life, 
but consign it to endless torment '." rejects all hypotheses tending 
to countenance such a dogma. And then, after answering the 
query by a decided no ! sustains the denial by the following argu- 
ments, to-wit : 

"'I. All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth to such as 
keep His covenant. TPs. xxv. 10.) 

" II. He who approaches God should believe that He will re- 
munerate obedience, and not condemn the obedient. ('Heb. xi. 6.) 

"III. In the innocent creature there could be no consciousness 
of crime and of the just sentence of God, which is the punishment 
of sense. 

1 Instit. Eleuct. Theol., loco IX.. Qua-st. 9, § 18,. (New York, 1847). 

2 Ibid., loco XVI.. Quaest. 2. § 19. See also Qua?st. 3. § 15. 



96 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



" IY. No glory could be derived to God from such an act, but 
rather the ignominy of tyrannic rule. 

" Y. The righteousness of God demands that the holy be dis- 
charged. (Ps. xviii. 26.)" 1 i. e., The law cannot punish them. 

12. John Owen. 

We invite special attention to the following affirmations by this 
illustrious prince of divines. In his "Display of Arminianism," 
(Chapter YIIL), when replying to the rabid assaults of the Re- 
monstrant school upon the doctrine of our participation in the first 
sin, he says : " I see no reason, then, why Corvinus should affirm, 
as he does, 'That it is absurd that by one man's disobedience 
many should be made actually disobedient,' unless he did it pur- 
posely to contradict St. Paul's teaching us that 'by one man's dis- 
obedience many were made sinners,' (Rom. v. 19). Paulas ait, 
Corvinus negat, eligite cui credatis : choose whom you will be- 
lieve, St. Paul or the Arminians. The sum of their endeavors in 
this particular is to clear the nature of man from being any way 
guilty of Adam's actual sin, as being then in him, a member and 
part of that body whereof he was the head, or from being ob- 
noxious to an interpretation of it by reason of that covenant which 
God made with us cdl in him; so that, denying, as you saw be- 
fore, all inherent corruption and pravity of nature, and now all 
participation by any means of Adam's transgressions, methinks 
they cast a great aspersion on Almighty God, however He dealt 
with Adam for his own particular, yet for casting us, his most 
innocent posterity, out of Paradise." . . . . "We confess, say 
they (that is, in the Apology for their Confession), that the sin of 
Adam may be thus far said to be imputed to his posterity, inas- 
much as God would have them all born obnoxious to that punish- 
ment which Adam incurred by his sin, or permitted that evil 
which was inflicted on him to descend on them.' Now, be the 
punishment what it will, never so small, yet if we have no demerit 
of our own, nor interest in Adam's sin, it is such cm act of in- 
justice as we must reject from the Most Holy with a God forbid ! 
Far be it from the Judge of all the world to punish the righteous 
with the ungodly. If God should impute the sin of Adam unto us, 
and thereon pronounce us obnoxious to the curse deserved by it, 
if we have a pure, sinless, unspotted nature, even this could scarce 
1 Summa Theologise, loco IX., p. 74 of the quarto edition. 



GOD'S PUNITIVE JUSTICE. CITATIONS 



be reconciled with the rule of His proceeding in justice with the 
sons of men, — 4 the soul that sinneth it shall die,' — which clearly 
granteth an impunity to all not tainted with sin. Sin and punish- 
ment, though they are sometimes separated by His mercy, pardon- 
ing the one, and so not inflicting the other, yet never by His justice 
inflicting the latter where the former is not. Sin imputed by itself 
alone, without cm inherent guilt, was never punished in any one 
hut Christ. The unsearchableness of God's love and justice in 
laying the iniquity of us all upon Him who had no sin is an ex- 
ception from that general rule He walketh by in His dealing with 
the posterity of Adam. So that, if punishment be not done unto 
ns for a solely imputed sin, much less, when it doth not stand with 
the justice and equity of God to impute any iniquity unto us at 
all, can we justly be wrapped in such a curse and punishment as 
woeful experience teaches that we he under.'* 1 

Again: In his treatise on Divine Justice he says, There are, 
again, some attributes which can in nowise have an egress, or be 
exercised, without an object predetermined, and, as it were, by 
some circumstances prepared for them : among them is punitive 
justice, for the exercise of which there would be no ground but 
upon the supposition of the existence of a rational being, and of its 
having sinned; but these being supposed, this justice must neces- 
sarily act according to its own ride." 2 

In view of such absolute testimonies as this, and the whole of 
the preceding catalogue, which present the doctrine recognized and 
taught by the Church of God on this subject, can any thing be 
more painfully surprising than that a member of our own com- 
munion should reject, denounce, and ridicule the great fundamen- 
tal truth thus affirmed, and then coolly offer as the doctrine re- 
ceived by the Church a scheme in direct antagonism therewith ? 
naming it " the federal system," and what not ! and proscribing 
as in fundamental error all who adhere to the Chinch doctrine, 
and refuse their assent to a claim so really preposterous and enor- 
mous ! The existence of such a phenomenon would seem almost 
to baffle belief . It is hardly necessary in this connection to refer 
to Dr. Hodge's favorite sophism, by which he has attempted to 

1 Works, Vol. V., pp. 128.. 129, (London, 1826). 

2 Ibid., Vol. IX., page 359. 



98 



ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



invalidate the force of such and similar utterances against his the- 
ory, yet a passing remark may not be unimportant. 

The Doctor claims that the existence of guilt is always presup- 
posed in the exactions of punitive justice, and that, if it be not 
subjective demerit, it must be imputed sin. This, indeed, is, at 
least in form, not unlike the formulation of the Augustinian di- 
vines, who, in disputing with the Socinians and Remonstrants, 
maintain that imputed sin, not less than our inherent, personal sin, 
may justly render us obnoxious to punishment, since Adam's own 
sin is truly imputed to us ; but, in the same connection in which 
they insist upon this, they likewise affirm (as in the foregoing in- 
stances) that it would be unjust were he to punish in an innocent 
creature the merely personal sin of another. These, however, are 
no antagonisms in the Church theology ; but in the theory of Dr. 
Hodge they are so utterly irreconcilable that the one logically and 
of necessity subverts the other. And yet he affirms, just as those 
divines do, that God may righteously punish the race for imputed 
sin ! What, then, is the solution % It is neither recondite nor 
difficult, but is found upon the very surface, to-wit : Dr. Hodge 
has rejected as nonsensical their •principle of explanation, and yet 
would avail himself of the exjjlanation itself. They, by imputed 
sin in this connection, mean the sin of Adam as principal, and our 
own sin as participants therein ; in other words, our participation 
in the offence of Adam, which constituted us subjectively guilty. 
But he, on the contrary, means by it Adam's merely personal sin 
— a peccatani alienum, or foreign sin — and rejects and denounces 
the doctrine of participation. And hence, while he, being com- 
pelled to do so by the exigencies of his theory, affirms that God, on 
His mere prerogative or arbitrary will, may pronounce and treat 
the just as unjust, they, with the whole Church, affirm that such a 
dogma is at war with the whole moral nature of God, and would con- 
stitute Him the author of sin. And thus, by repudiating the only 
available principle of explanation, Dr. Hodge rejects the Church 
doctrine at the same time that he professes to receive and teach it. 

13. President Witherspoon. 

" It seems to be a matter insisted on in the strongest manner in 
Scripture, that the evil or guilt of every creature is to be ascribed 
to the creature, as to its proper and adequate cause." 1 

1 Works, Vol. IV., pp. 81, 82. (Philadelphia, 1802.) 



GOD*S PUXITIVE JUSTICE. CITATIONS, 



9:» 



The foregoing citations are certainly sufficient to illustrate and 
establish the accuracy of the representation made in the beginning 
of this section, though the whole Calvinistic church could be ap- 
pealed to as inculcating the same doctrine. It will be in place, 
however, before concluding, to present in his own words the view 
alleged on the same subject by Dr. Hodge, that our readers may 
have the opportunity to compare it promptly with the expressed 
doctrine of the Church. In his review of Dr. Baird ? s work (already 
referred to) he says, " We cannot help agreeing with Dr. Thorn- 
well in saying that this is substituting absurdity for obscurity. 
Still, there is no sin in absurdity. But the case is very different 
when we are told that we must believe this doctrine, because other- 
wise God would be unjust ; or when it is asserted, in support of 
this theory, that the judgment of God must be founded on the per- 
sonal merits or demerits of those whom they affect ; that it is a 
denial of His moral nature, and even atheistic, to say that He 
can pronounce the just unjust, or the unjust just; that the only 
legitimate ground of judgment are character and works ; and when 
still further it is asserted that community in a propagated nature 
involves ail those to whom that nature belongs in the criminality 
and pollution of their progenitor. Then, we say, that the whole 
gospel is destroyed, and every scriptural ground of salvation for 
sinners is removed." 1 

This repudiation of the Church doctrine is siiffieiently explicit. 
And the attempt of Dr. Hodge to justify it, by endeavoring to 
identify that doctrine with philosophical theories with which it has 
not even the remotest connection, can in no wise relieve the fatal 
position here assumed. Certain divines have, indeed, philoso- 
phized on the subject ; but the Doctor is aware, and no man 
of teiier than he has insisted on the fact, that no unauthorized 
speculations are to be attributed to the Church as her recognized 
doctrine. We have seen, moreover, in a preceding section, that 
his endeavor to fortify himself in this antagonism by assumed 
analogies in Scripture, and in profane history, is simply absurd, 
since the principle he asserts is in no way either involved or im- 
plied in any of the cases which he has adduced, or can adduce. 
The doctrine of the Beformed church, therefore, while it thus 

1 Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 763, 764. We shall have occasion in an- 
other section to remark directly on this passage. 



100 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



unequivocally teaches that God never punishes sin in any creature 
whose conscience (His own vicegerent) can enable him truly to 
say, " I have not transgressed," repudiates, as a festering, fatal 
gangrene, the whole theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin. 

§11. Condition of the Argument. — Augustine. 

In our two preceding sections, the doctrine of the Church in 
respect to the issue before us has been presented, as it were, inci- 
dentally — that is, as brought to view in its connection with the 
order of topics and punitive justice. In the remaining sections of 
our Second Part, we shall, under various captions, proceed to un- 
fold .the doctrine as directly stated and explained. Should we, in 
some instances, regard it as important to consider a citation from 
more than one standpoint, this will be but seldom, for our aim is 
to lay before our readers as large a portion of the testimony of 
the good and gifted men of the Church as is compatible with the 
limits assigned to the work, in order that our own denomination, 
which is principally concerned in the matter, may possess in a 
convenient form the material requisite to enable her fairly and 
promptly to resolve the issues involved in the transcendently im- 
portant question, which (as we are assured) must soon be practi- 
cally decided, — whether the fundamental principles of her cherished 
theology are now to be compromised, or are still to be maintained in 
their integrity. We are no alarmist, but we do affirm most emphat- 
ically that existing circumstances imperatively demand that this mo- 
mentous question be determined with the least practicable delay. 

The earlier as well as the later theologians of the Reformation, 
both Lutheran and Calvinist, had, through the assaults of sundry 
Jesuitic and Papal divines, and of the Socinian and Eemonstrant 
schools, and through the exegesis they adopted, not less than 
through the sarcasm and denunciation by which they would en- 
force the necessity for such exegesis, the" fairest opportunity to 
learn the full force of all that is now offered in favor of the doc- 
trine of a gratuitous imputation, and against the Church doctrine 
of original sin. Some, it is true (as remarked on a previous page), 
did resort to the philosophy of realism, and others to that of 
nominalism, to parry those assaults ; but, as a body, they dis- 
claimed such resort, and frankly conceded their inability to explain 
how the race itself so sinned in and with Adam as to become sub- 



CONDITION OF THE ARGUMENT. 



101 



jectivelj with him partakers of guilt and corruption. The truth 
of the doctrine was based by them simply on the inspired testi- 
mony ; and they claimed that what was thus announced was needed 
as an explanatory principle, on which alone the doctrine itself could 
be truly explicated so as to be reconcilable with the moral perfec- 
tions of God, the doctrine of redemption itself, and, in one word, 
with the entire Christian system. They may not have employed 
the term explanatory principle in the case any more than in re- 
lation to the Tri-unity of God, but their treatment of the subject 
everywhere evinces that the conception was recognized by their 
inner consciousness, even though it might not as yet have obtained 
a formulated utterance. 

In a previous section we have shown, by a reference to. the law 
of gravitation, that science recognizes the propriety and justness 
of such a position, so that it is now too late to attempt to carry it 
by the assaults of sarcasm, or to place it hors du combat by de- 
nunciation. Such a procedure availed little in the time of Angus- 
tine 1 and of the Reformation, and with the serious minded and 
intelligent it is still less effective now. The supporters of the 
dogma of the gratuitous imputation of sin must, therefore, meet 
the question squarely ; for it will be in vain to attempt still to 
ignore the position, or to evade the point by the un scholarly pro- 
cedure of endeavoring to associate the principle itself with either 
the realistic philosophy on the one hand, or the doctrine of mediate 
imputation on the other. That principle repudiates both as en- 
tirely as it repudiates the theory of gratuitous imputation itself; 
and any farther manoeuvering of the kind will be regarded as a 
concession of inability to sustain either the argument or the per- 
emptoriness with which the principle has been assailed. Dr. 
Hodge has affirmed times twice told that the issue between the 
doctrine we are defending and that which he maintains is vital and 
fundamental to the evangelical system ; and in this he is clearly 
right, and, as already stated, we fully concur with him therein. 

We repeat, then, that the Reformers taught, not only that the 
corruption of nature which makes us guilty before God is trans- 

1 Pelagius, e. g., in his note on Romans vii. 8. says : They are insane who 
teach that the sin of Ada;n comes on us by propagation." And his pupil. 
Cailestius, (on original sin) says : " A sin propagated by generation is wholly 
contrary to the Catholic faith." 



102 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



mitted from our first parents by generation, but that we so par- 
ticipated in this very offence as to become subjectively guilty. 
This has always been the doctrine of the Church ; and we request 
our readers to observe that within her enclosure no such doctrine 
as the gratuitous imputation of a peccatum alienum was ever 
broached, except to be sternly rejected and condemned. Some 
few of the earlier Reformers entertained the conception, which 
subsequently was strongly presented by the great Quenstedt and 
other rigid Lutherans, that the corrupt or sinful state of human 
nature was not so much a positive infliction as a natural and neces- 
sary consequence of the fall; yet, for the most part, the divines 
of the Calvinistic communion taught, not only that this depraved 
condition constituted us subjectively guilty, but that it results 
penally from our having sinned in the fall; that as Adam and 
Eve, by their sin, plunged themselves into the abyss of spiritual 
degradation and death, exposing themselves to all its fearful evils, 
so, by participating therein, their posterity plunged themselves 
into the same. And that, as far as moral corruption may be con- 
sidered a penal infliction on our first parents, so far may it be ac- 
counted such in their posterity, but no farther, and in no other 
sense. They never held that Adam's personal sin, being imputed as 
& peccatum alienum, was the ground on which God inflicts upon the 
race the penalty of moral corruption and spiritual death. Dr. Hodge 
has, in times without number and in every form, asserted the con- 
trary ; but the 2^roof of the allegation, though so vitally necessary to 
the very existence of his theory, he leaves to take care of itself. 

And now a single word in relation to Augustine, before we pro- 
ceed with the argument : 

In his Theology Dr. Hodge has very erroneously represented 
this illustrious father as inculcating the gratuitous imputation of 
sin. For example, he charges him with holding " That the loss of 
original righteousness and the corruption of nature consequent on 
the fall of Adam are penal inflictions, being the punishment of 
the first sin; 1 (meaning by first sin the merely person al sin of 
Adam), a statement which Augustine everywhere and constantly 
disclaims. And then, on the page following, after properly rep- 
resenting him as teaching " that a sinful nature is propagated by 
the very law T of generation," Dr. Hodge adds, that this is not an 
1 See Theology, Vol. II., pp. 161-163. 



AUGUSTINE. 



103 



integral part of his system} It is to be presumed that Dr. Hodge 
is not unaware of the responsibility incurrred by such an utter- 
ance, and we take direct issue with him thereon. For that a sin- 
ful nature is propagated by generation was not only affirmed by 
Augustine to be a radical part of his system, 2 and that the entire 
Lutheran and Reformed churches haye not only regarded him as 
so teaching, but haye, in the most explicit manner, themselyes 
inculcated the same, is (as we shall show), beyond any serious 
question. 

The citations which Dr. Hodge subjoins frorn Augustine are, in 
their entirety, consistent with the doctrine that the posterity were 
seminally present with Adam, and potentially sinned in and fell 
with him in the first transgression, and thus became, along with 
him, subjectively guilty ; and though the citation from Wiggers 
(to the effect that spiritual death was held by Augustine to be the 
special and principal penalty of Adam's sin, which penalty has 
passed upon all men), is so presented by Dr. Hodge as to give to it 
the appearance of sustaining the supposition that Augustine re- 
garded the first transgression as Adam's personal sin alo?ie, to the 
exclusion of oar sin in him, it is done without authority from either 
Triggers or Augustine himself. Augustine does not attach this 
meaning to the phrase "Adam's first sin," when employed by him 
in such connection. In his view it is always a sin in which his pos- 
terity so participated as to become alike guilty with him, and justly 
exposed to condemnation and death. And hence, when Pelagius 
accused him of holding that the sin of Adam as a foreign sin 
(peccatum ALiExuii is the term he employs), was charged upon 
the race as the actual ground of its condemnation and death (the 
very principle which Dr. Hodge himself asserts), Augustine de- 
nied it in the most emphatic manner, and shows that the doctrine 
which he entertained and defended involved no such conclusion. 

He taught, indeed, not only that physical death resulted both to 

1 Theology, Vol. II., p. 162. 

2 Wiggers gives the following as the first article in his summary of the doc- 
trine of Augustine on original sin: " Adam's sin has been propagated among 
all men, and will always be propagated, and that by sensual lust in procrea- 
tion (concupisentia), by which man in his natural state is subjected to the 
devil." {Augustinism and Pelagianism, page 88), and which he fully and 
abundantly establishes by quotations from Augustine on the subsequent 
pages. 



104 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Adam and his seed from their sin, and was not (as Pelagius as- 
serted), natural to man; but also that original sin or corruption 
was a punishment for the first transgression, and was truly sin ; 
for, being contracted by us in the fall, it descends through nat- 
ural generation, as both our sin and punishment. 1 We could fill 
pages with extracts illustrative of this representation, but shall 
offer a few only which are current in our theological literature,, 
and which, from their frequent citation, may be supposed familiar. 
In his work on original sin, and referring to God's connection 
with the events of the fall, he says : " God did nothing except 
that He, by a just judgment, condemned with the root, man, who 
had wilfully sinned ; and therefore that which was not as yet born 
was deservedly condemned in the traitorous original, in which 
condemned root carnal generation holds the race." 2 

It may be so, as Dr. Hodge ungraciously alleges, that Augus- 
tine was not altogether consistentin some of his avowals ; and it 
would be indeed marvellous if, emerging in early life from the 
polluting sink cf Manichaeism, his first-formed conceptions of *di- 
vine truth should not, in his long and laborious and prayerful 
study of the Scriptures, have advanced to greater maturity ; but 
as regards ,the subject before us, the statement contained in this 
citation embodies his matured and abiding convictions. And so, 
again, he affirms the imputation of the original or first sin with a 
strictness and emphasis beyond all who had preceded him, as, for 
example, referring to our first parents, he says: "By whom so 
grievous a transgression was perpetrated that human nature be- 
came thereby changed for the worse (ut in deterius eo natura mu- 
taretur humana) ; the bondage of sin and the necessity of death 

1 The Pelagians, when they speak of Augustine's views on the subject, in- 
stead of the term Original Sin used by him, employ rather the expression 
natural sin {peccatum naturale), or the expression natural evil {malum nat- 
urale ; probably for the purpose of rendering more striking the contradiction 
involved in the phrase natural sin, and on which account Augustine pro- 
tested against this expression, and when it was employed by the Pelagians 
usually substituted his own expression, peccatum originate. There may in- 
deed be, says he, a sin of nature {peccatum natures), but not a natural sin 
[peccatum naturale.) In a certain sense, however, he was not unwilling that 
the term should be employed. (Op. Imp. V., 9, 40.) Only he regarded the 
expression original sin as more definite, because by it the idea of God being 
the author of sin is removed. See Wiggers, ubi supra, page 83. 

2 Be Peccato Originis, cap. 38. 



AUGUSTINE. 



105 



being transmitted even to posterity v' 1 The thought, moreover, is 
never lost sight of, that demeritoriously the sin ivas as fully oars 
as it tons theirs ; e.g., "Through the perverse will of that one,, 
all have sinned in him (in eo), seeing that all were that one; from 
whom, therefore, every one derives original sin." 2 Again (from 
the Be Civitate Dei) : " Not as" vet was the form created and as- 
signed to us each in which we each should live ; for as yet the na- 
ture from which we should be propagated was seminal, which, 
however, became vitiated on account of sin (propter peccata), and 
bound by the chain of death and justly condemned; nor of any 
other condition can man be born from man." 3 

"Wounds inflicted on bodies make the limbs falter or move 
feebly, but not that power by which man is just ; ]but the wound 
which is called sin wounds that life by which there was holy liv- 
ing. Therefore, by that great sin of the first man, our nature, then 
changed for the worse, not only has become a sinner (peccatrix)r 
but produces sinners. And yet that weakness (languor) by which 
the power of holy living perished is not nature at all, but a cor- 
ruption, just as bodily infirmity is certainly not any substance or 
nature, but a vitiation." 4 

Such, then, are his views; nor is it easy to understand how they 
could be so egregiously misapprehended as to lead any one to 
imagine that he taught the gratuitous imputation of sin. Hagen- 
bach, whose impartiality will not be questioned, affirms that Au- 
gustine laid down this proposition: that "as all men have sinned 
in Adam, they are justly subject to the condemnation of God on 
account of the hereditary sin and the guilt thereof.''" 1 And Dr. 
Julius Midler avers that "'Augustine everywhere remains true to 
the denial of the divine origination of sin. Though the opposite 
opinion has often been imposed upon him in the past and present 
times, on account of divine predestination, yet this belongs to 
those groundless inferences which have been so freely drawn, es- 
pecially from this great teacher of the Church. 6 

1 De Civitate Dei, lib. 16, cap. 1. 2 De Nnpt. et Concept., II., cap. 5. 

3 Lib. 13, cap. 14. 

4 De Nupt. et Concept,, II., 34. Confer item De Nat, et Grat,. 54. Op. Imp., 
vi. 7. 

5 Hagenbach, ubi supra, p. 299. 

6 On the Christian Doctrine of Sin, Vol. I., p. 308. 



106 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



But we must proceed with our citations, and shall first present 
a few of the more general references to the subject by the Church 
theologians, and lay before the reader what may properly be called 
their unstudied or spontaneous allusions to the doctrine (which is 
certainly a consideration of some weight), after which we shall 
present more elaborately some of the more formal or expository 
statements of both Calvinists and Lutherans; for both alike are 
claimed in support of his theory by Dr. Hodge, and both alike re- 
pudiate it utterly. 

§ 12. General References to the Subject by the Divines of 
the Reformation. — Citations. 1 

1. We begin with Viret, the companion of Calvin in the Re- 
formation. He says, "God permitted the fall and corruption of 
the whole nature of man in the man first formed." (Dial. I.) Our 
readers will Observe the force of the word "permitted" as here 
employed — God permitted Adam to corrupt himself, and the whole 
race to corrupt itself ; that is, the whole nature to become corrupt 
in the man first formed. Now, Dr. Hodge's theory makes this 
corruption of the race a positive, divine, and penal infliction, not 
on account of our own guilt or demerit, but of Adam's peccatum 
alienum. He says: "Spiritual death was the penal, and therefore 
certain, consequence of our condemnation for the sin of Adam." 2 
Yiret makes it & permission on the part of God; and thus, while 
he does not deny that evil came upon us penally, he recognizes our 
own ethical appropriation of the guilt which brought it upon us. 

2. In like manner speaks Bullinger of Zurich, who, instead of 
deriving the corruption of the race from the personal sin alone of 
Adam through a forensic imputation, derives it from our first 
parents through propagation. He says: "Sin is called original, 
or the sin of our birth, because it comes from our first origin, or 
is derived from our first parents upon .all by propagation or traduc- 
tion After man became obnoxious to punishment, so far 

were we from having any power by which we could deliver our- 
selves, that by reason of our nature and inherent depravity we 
rather increase the shame." 

1 Most of the citations in § 12 will be found more fully presented, with 
notices of their authors, in our former essay, in the Danville Review for 1862. 
8 See Theology, Vol. II., p. 538. 



GENERAL REFERENCES. 



107 



3. Ueses-us. In the earliest issue of his Expositio Catechismi 
Heidelberg^ he says : " That sin is called original which comes from 
our first origin, even from the first parent, derived to all by propa- 
gation or traduction^ (Page 102.) In the last edition (by Parens, 
1622). he says: Original sin "passes neither by the body nor by 
the soul, but by the unclean generation of the whole wan, on account 
of the fault (culpam) of our first parents." 2 And then, still further- 
on: "But we all suffer justly the fault of Adam: 1, Because it is 
so the fault of Adam, that it is also ours (culpa sic est Adami, ut 
etiam sit nostra) ; for we all sinned in sinning Adam, because we 
were all in his loins." And again : " Peccatnm originate est 
yrrroi xox yoiXNTATis, skd mature." (Pages 4:0—13.) 

4. Chemnitz f a Lutheran, though greatly esteemed in the Re- 
formed church) says: "As we know not how the soul contracts 
that evil (the corruption of nature), we may safely be ignorant; 
because the Holy Spirit has not attempted to make this known by 
Sure and certain testimonies." (Cited in Baier's Theol. Positiy., 
p. 523.) 

1 This edition (by the learned and excellent Simon Goulart Seulisin, who had 
succeeded Calvin in Geneva as pastor, and died in 1628, aged 86 years), was 
issued in 1584, about a year after the demise of Ursinus, and was one of the 
three editions then published from notes of his lectures taken by his pupils, 
and was. moreover, prepared from notes taken by Goulart himself and several 
other students ; for Ursinus delivered his lectures extempore. These editions 
were, however, on many accounts imperfect, and greatly inferior to that of 
Parens, the favorite pupil of Ursinus, and who had received the whole ex- 
position from his own lips, and whose edition, from the time of its first ap- 
pearance (in 1591) . was universally regarded as the most authentic, and as 
every way superior to the others, none of which were afterwards reprinted. 
I refer to these facts simply because everything relating to Ursinus and this 
admirable work of his cannot but be regarded as of interest to the Church. 

2 In our former essay we did injustice to De Moor, by stating that he had 
not quoted this passage from Ursinus correctly. We have since seen a copy 
of the edition from which he made the quotation (for he has not named it), 
and find the passage verbatim as cited by him. He himself, however, has 
been unjust therein (unintentionally of course) to Ursinus by not citing from 
the edition which Parens pronounces to be the only complete one, and from 
which he emphatically enjoins that all subsequent reprints (and. of course, 
citations) be made. It was published in 1622 by his son, Philip, with this 
injunction, some five years later than the one from which De Moor has 
quoted, and should certainly have been employed in presenting on all really 
important questions the views of its illustrious author. 



108 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



5. Dan^eus. "Adam when he sinned instilled his poison into- 
us all." " In one Adam they sinned, and are constituted guilty 
before God." 

6. Hyperius. "The evil and contagion is to all the posterity 
of Adam by propagation alone (ipsa sola propagations). "By the 
offence of one evil was propagated to all men for condemnation."" 
Our readers must not suppose, from these and similar statements- 
of this eminent reformer and critic, that he in any way discarded 
the doctrine of the imputation of the Adamic sin. He held that 
doctrine in its integrity, as entertained and taught by the Reformed 
church, two-wit: that the criminality of Adam's sin was imputed 
to us because of our participation therein; and that this, together 
with inherent sin, descends by propagation to all who are naturally 
begotten; or, in the words of Ursinus, it descends "by the unclean 
generation of the whole man." In other words: original sin, in- 
cluding both inherent corruption and imputed guilt, descends to 
all the race through propagation. And yet Dr. Hodge inculcates 
as the doctrine of the Reformed Calvinistic church that original 
sin is propagated neither through the body nor through the soul, 
but through guilt ! 1 

7. Polanus. " The first fall of Adam was not only the sin of 
Adam, but ours;" that is, the original fall was our sin not less 
than the sin of Adam, and the guilt of it no more becomes ours 
through a merely forensic imputation than it did his. 

8. Pareus. " Original sin, properly denned, is the corruption 
of the whole human race, from the fall of our first parents, natu- 
rally propagated to all ; making us guilty of temporal and eternal 
punishment, unless there should be forgiveness on account of 
Christ." 

9. Filenus. "Original sin is that hereditary corruption of 
human nature whereby all who are propagated by natural gener- 
ation from Adam are infected, and so in the loins of this first 
parent they both sinned together with him, and incurred the guilt 
of temporal and eternal punishment. 

10. Du Plessis Mornay. "We know whence proceeded the 
corruption of the human race, to-wit : from our grievous sin and 
the punishment which followed it. We were all in the first man 
when he sinned" It is noteworthy that this most accomplished 

1 See Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 362, 367. 



GENERAL REFERENCES. 



109 



scholar, statesman, and theologian, — the favorite officer, both in 
cabinet and in the field, of Henry IY. (of Navarre, who nsed to 
speak of him as his " walking library,") — should not only utter 
the foregoing " unthinkable" proposition (as Drs. Bauer and Hodge 
have discovered it to be), but should even utter it, as he does again 
.and again, in the very face of the learned infidels of his time, as a 
proposition which really had sense in it ; and that he should do 
this, moreover, in the admirable treatise written by him for the 
purpose of convincing them of the truth and reasonableness of 
Christianity ! 1 

11. Drelltngcourt. "The sin of Adam is imputed to us be- 
cause we all sinned in Adam" Think of any serious mind soberly 
endeavoring to reconcile such a statement with the gratuitous im- 
putation scheme of Dr. Hodge ! 

12. Hoornbeck. "You ask, whence is the sin that is within 
us? The answer is ready: from the common sin of Adam, im- 
puted to all men from Adam" 

13. Usher. "Secondly, that we all who are descended from 
Adam by natural generation were in his loins and a part of him 
when he fell, and so by the law of propagation and generation 
sinned in him, and in him deserved eternal condemnation there- 
from." 

1-1. Synopsis Purioris Theologee. 

"Homini in creatione duplex vita a Deo data ex fait, animalis et 
spiritualis: ilia, in animae et corporis union e sita fuit; haec, in 
conjunctione animas cum Deo opifice suo. Ut prima amittitur 
per separationem illius naturalis; sic per alien ationem hominis a 
Deo, sequutus est spiritualis interitus. Qua defection e si reliquas 
etiam creaturas ita possum dedit Adam, ut propterea maledictioni 
fact^e fuerunt obnoxise, nihil a ratione alienum est, si ad totam 
ejus sobolem sit propagata, quae peccati hujus per quod mors in- 
travit in mimdum, particeps facta, sub illius deformitate et reatu 
oppressa manet, donee ab alio liberetur." (Disput. XY., § 1.) 

15. Mestrezatius, in his work against Millitaire (who was con- 
demned by the Synod of Charenton), says : " But you will say, the 
corruption of Adam has descended to us really, and inheres in us. 
So it does; but I affirm that the imputation of his disobedience 

1 See his De Veritate Relig. Christ., cap. XVI., p. 270, and cap. XVII., pp. 
281, 284, 285. Herbornte, Xassaitviorum, anno 1609. 



110 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



■precedes, and that therefore corruption is derived to us by generation, 
because we sinned in Adam as in our head, God abandoning the 
posterity of Adam to the corruption of their father on account of 
his sin" (p. 13). This is one of the passages which an unobservant 
reader might easily mistake the sense of ; but the intelligent mind 
will have no difficulty in observing that Mestrezat does not employ 
the term imputation, as Dr. Hodge does, in the merely forensic 
sense; nor the phrase Adam's sin to signify only Adam's personal 
sin, or peccatum alienum. 

16. Maresius. " And seeing that in him should be rated newly 
born infants, who are not guilty of having imitated the Adamic 
transgression, nor, indeed, are able, it remains that they are made 
sinners by his offence, not by imitation ; but partly by imputation, 
partly by propagation through generation." 1 As the Socinians de- 
nied all participation of Adam's sin, and admitted only its forensic 
imputation to the race, the later Reformers, as in this instance, af- 
firmed specifically both the real or immediate imputation of the 
first sin as our own by participation, and its propagation through 
generation. 

These references may suffice, though we could give multitudes 
of others equally in point, as exhibiting, so to speak, how the doc- 
trine presents itself, not in elaborate formulated phraseology by the 
Augustinian divines, but simply as the spontaneous and often in- 
cidental utterance of impressions which the truth had inwrought 
into their very souls. All their allusions to it, whether casual ut- 
terances or formal dogmatic announcements, (as the reader will see 
from our next section,) conveyed the same unvarying impressions. 
And the reader has but to cast his eye over the preceding refer- 
ences alone in order to perceive how unfortunately and lamentably 
Dr. Hodge has gone astray by intimating, as above shown, that the 
propagation of a sinful nature by the law of generation is not a 
part of the Augustinian system, (see his Theology, Yol. II., page 
162) ; and that, moreover, the theory of the gratuitous imputation 
of sin, which he denominates "the federal system," and persists in 
attributing to them, had not the slightest foothold in their the- 
ology, any more than the scheme of Socinianism itself. All of 
which, however, will be, if possible, still more apparent from the 
next ensuing sections. 

1 Contra Volkel, Tom. III., page 612. (Groninga3, 1651.) 



EXP< »SITORT STATEMENTS 



111 



£13. Formal and Expositoky Statements. 
We hare already adverted to the fact that Dr. Hodge teaches 
that the sin of Adam was made common to the race by a forensic 
or gratuitous imputation,, while, on the contrary, the Calvinistic 
and Lutheran communions have, from the beginning, always taught 
that the sin was imputed because it teas common ; i. e., the sin alike 
of Adam and his posterity. This single point presents, in fact, the 
nucleus of the whole question. For if the sin became common 
only through the forensic or gratuitous imputation of Adam's 
■peccatum. alien urn , or merely personal guilt, then the doctrine of 
our participation therein is a figment, and Dr. Hodge's theory is 
the true doctrine, and no alternative can remain to us but to ac- 
cept it with all its fatal sequences as regards our theology, and to 
acquiesce, moreover, in the exegesis by which he claims that it 
may be supported. But if, on the contrary, the first sin was im- 
puted because it was common, and if such be the unvarying doc- 
trine of the Church of God, then of course Dr. Hodge has left to 
his brethren no alternative but to regard and treat his theory as a 
fundamental and fatal departure (as he himself has always con- 
ceded) from their cherished faith. Let us, then, at this stage of 
the investigation patiently hear the formal and expository utter- 
ances of the Church on the subject. And we shall in this section 
employ the letter "A " to designate the catalogue of the Calvinis- 
tic testimonies, and the letter " JB" those of the Lutheran. 

A. The Calvinistic Divines.— Citations. 
1. Alttxgits. 

This truly learned and eminent theologian, who is sometimes 
referred to by Dr. Hodge, though not in connection with the topic 
before us. stands in the very front rank of our Church divines. 
He repeats in every form of expression that the first sin was com- 
mon alike both to Adam and his posterity, not because imputed, 
but common, and therefore imputed. All, says he, sinned in him 
potentially and originally . Omnes in ipso peccarunt duva/jLst et 
or'io ma liter . >. 

In his celebrated work, Scriptomim Theolog., Heidelberg, 1 he, 
after remarking on the efficient cause, both near and remote, of 
original sin, says : " The mode of effecting in general can be called 

1 Tom. I., p. 124, (Amsterdam/ 1846). 



112 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



the transmission or derivation of sin from one to all, — from Adam 
to his posterity. But in particular ; in respect to the remote con- 
sequence, it is called imputation ; in respect to the cause at hand, 
— that is, the first man who perpetrated the first sin, the cause of 
original sin, — it is called generation. From which method of a 
twofold presentation original sin is occasionally {nonnumquam) 
distinguished into imputed and inherent. Imputation is that God 
imputes the first actual sin of Adam to all his natural heirs. 
(Rom. v. 19.) Wherefore it is for this reason said to be imputed, 
because it had passed into act, and does not inhere to us as to 
Adam. And most deservedly {ineritissime) is it imputed, because 
all sinned in him as in the stalk or root. (Rom. v. 12; Heb. vii. 
10.) Generation is that Adam in generating propagates to his 
posterity the corruption of nature contracted from the first sin. 
(Gen. v. 3 ; Job xiv. 4; Ps. li. 7 ; John iii. 6.) And the antithesis 
— spiritual regeneration from the incorruptible seed of the word of 
God — evinces that this is so. (1 Pet. i. 23; James i. 18.) The 
foundation of it is the law of generation divinely appointed ; for, 
as in our pristine condition God would have propagated original 
righteousness as the reward of obedience, so he vnlls that original 
sin be propagated in our corrupt nature in punishment of dis- 
obedience. (Rom. v. 19.) Hence, as physically, not only does 
man generate man, but also the diseased will generate the diseased, 
and the leprous a leper ; so, theologically, the corrupt will beget 
the corrupt, and the sinner a sinner." This passage can leave no 
doubt as to the views entertained by this great theologian on the 
subject before us; nor could the latter part of it have been more 
direct and pointed had it been designed as a formal offset to Dr. 
Hodge's "constant answer" of the Calvinistic theologians, that 
original sin is propagated neque per corpus, neque per animam, sed 
per culpam. 

Then, in his great work, Theologia Ecleuctica JVova, 1 when re- 
futing the objection that "the goodness, veracity and wisdom of 
God would not permit Him to impute a foreign sin to another 
{alienum peccatum alteri), and that therefore he could not impute 
the sin of Adam to his posterity," he says: " Antecedens sim- 
pliciter acceptum abunde refellit vel sola communicatio legis, (Ex. 
xx. 5 ; xxxiv. 7) , atque etiam exemplum Christi, cui peccata nostra 
1 See page 333, (Amsterdam, 1654). 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS, 



113 



vere imputata sunt. (Esa. liii. 6, et seq. ; 2 Cor. v. 21.) Restrin- 
gendum igitur antecedens ad peccata, guce simpliciter aliena sunt, 
et uni propria. Sed peccatum Adami esse omnibus vere commune 
jam supra evincemus" That is, "The threatening of the law 
alone, as likewise the example of Christ (to whom our sins were 
truly imputed), abundantly refute the antecedent strictly taken. 
Therefore it should be restricted to sins which properly are 
another's, and pertain to one only. But the sin 'of Adam was 
common to all, as ice have already shown." . 

The doctrine unambiguously declared in this passage is, 1, That 
the antecedent member of the objection cited (which affirms that 
the goodness, veracity and wisdom of God cannot impute the sin 
of one person to another), if strictly taken, is false, being contrary 
to the Scriptures. Though, 2, it is nevertheless at the same time 
to be conceded as affirming the truth, if the sins imputed are 
strictly foreign (aliena), and pertain only to another. And, of 
course, therefore, neither the instances referred to in the law, nor 
the case of our blessed Redeemer, can be included under the 
category; for God, who would not impute sin which is wholly 
another's, did impute and punish it in these cases, Christ having 
voluntarily assumed its guilt. And 3, The sin of Adam cannot 
he brought under this category, because it was truly common to cdl 
the race, and was, therefore, imputed to all. Such is the doctrine 
herein inculcated; and yet Dr. Hodge has taught, and still per- 
sists to teach as a vital and undoubted principle of the Augus- 
tinian theology, that the sin of Adam was to the race strictly a 
peccatum alienum. 

Altingius, referring also to the question, "Whether all the race 
sinned in Adam ? and whether his sin should be imputed to all 
his posterity? had said, on a previous page (p. 329), that as Adam 
is to be regarded both as an individual distinct from other in- 
dividuals, and also as the beginning of the whole human race (be- 
cause they were in him as the root, and from him were propa- 
gated), so is his sin to be regarded in a twofold aspect. After 
which he adds: "Etenim quatenus ad ipsum refertur est delictum 
particulare ipsius, tanquam individui. Ut vero etia m ad poster os 
eztenditur, est culpa universalis totius generis huma?ii, in ipso con- 
tracts, et toti generi h umano, ju-Ho Dei judicio imputata; i. e., 
the ground of its righteous imputation is the fact that it was the 
8 



114 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



culpa participatione of the entire race ; on which ground, how- 
ever, Dr. Hodge constantly affirms that there could be no imputa- 
tion. 1 

Alting continues as follows : " Thus in regard to this sin the 
orthodox churches with great unanimity believe and teach agree- 
ably to the word of God. The Socinians and the Innovators 
[Remonstrants], however, turn aside from this consent to the 
Pelagian dogmas, forasmuch as they expressly deny that the whole 
human race has sinned, and that it is fallen in Adam, (Socinus de 
statu primo hominis, cap. 10,) 'or that God has determined that, 
on account of that one fall of Adam, the whole human race should 
be accused of sin.'' .... They plainly assert, as did the old 
Pelagians, ' That the sin of Adam injured himself only, not other 
men, his posterity also.' The Innovators for a time expressed 
themselves ambiguously, as persons might do who are in doubt; 
but in their Apology [for their Confession], the mask being laid 
aside, they declare themselves for the Socinians, for they plainly 
write (in cap. 7), 'Peccatum Adamid Deo imputari poster is ipsius, 
non quasi revera censeat ipsos reos ejusdem cum Adamo peccati 
et culpa, sed quatenus eos eideni malo, cui Adamus per peccatum 
obnoxium se reddidit obnoxios nasci voluit^ But of what kind it 
may be, and that it can furnish neither ground of sin nor of pro- 
per punishment, will appear in the sequel. Therefore they also 
deny that iue, properly speaking, sinned, in Adam, or are accused 
of his sin" 

Such is his statement. And, now let our readers carefully note 
its points. They are, 1, That while the Socinians and Arminians 
denied the Church doctrine of the imputation of Adam's sin to 
his posterity, they admitted and maintained its putative or gratui- 
tous imputation. Note, 2, With what clearness Alting affirms the 
Church doctrine that we participated in the culpa of Adam's sin, 
and how fully he distinguishes this doctrine from the forensic or 
gratuitous theory of the Socinians and Arminians, which Dr. 
Hodge now maintains to be the doctrine of the Calvinistic church. 
Also, 3, Observe his statement, that Socinus and his followers, in 

1 See, for example, Princeton Essays, first series, p. 147. The error thus 
brought to view, evincing Dr. Hodge's total misapprehension of the nature of 
imputation as taught by the Augustinian church, is the ground upon which 
he has been so strangely led to assume that the divines of the Keformation 
actually entertained and taught his theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



115 



opposing this doctrine of the orthodox churches (ecclesise ortho- 
dox^) expressly denied that the race sinned and fell in Adam, and 
assumed the ground (subsequently taken also by the Innovators 
or Ai-minians in chapter 7, of the Apology for their Confession), 
to-wit : " That the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity by God, 
not as though He accounts them guilty of the same fault and sin 
with Adam, but so far as He willed that they should be born ob- 
noxious to the same evil to which Adam had exposed himself 
through sin " And, 1, Let it "be further observed, that Dr. Hodge 
likewise affirms the same; not, however, as the doctrine of So emus 
and his school, as Alting here does, but as the recognized theology 
of the Calvinistic church, and as such has been inculcating it upon 
the students of our theological seminary. And, 5, and finally, that 
Alting affirms in the most direct and emphatic maimer that this 
theory is a denial of the doctrine of original sin ; that is, that we, 
properly speaking, sinned in Adam, and are charged with the 
guilt of that participation. 

One other point demands our attention in connection with this 
eminent theologian. Dr. Hodge, in expounding his theory of 
the gratuitous imputation of sin, asserts that the depravity, or 
native inherent corruption of Adam's posterity, is the penal con- 
sequence of the imputation of his merely personal sin — "the one 
sin of the one man" to use a favorite expression of his ; and, more- 
over, that imputed sin is never by the Calvinistic divines named 
"vere peccatumr On page 337 of this same work Alting dis- 
courses on that subject in the following form : " Whether original 
sin is truly and properly sin (vere et prqprie peccatwiri) , or only the 
effect and punishment of Adam's first sin ?" On which, after a 
remark or two, he proceeds to say, " The orthodox doctrine is as 
follows : I. That original sin is sin in the true and proper sense of 
the term. II. That in the wider sense it consists in the transgres- 
sion of Adam imputed to us, in whom we all have sinned (Rom. v. 
12) j and in the corruption of nature inhering in every one (Rom. 
vii. 11, seq.), each of which is srx, (quarum utraque est peccatum). 
III. But that, strictly taken, it includes only the internal corrup- 
tion of nature, of which the privation of righteousness, or the 
natural inclination and proclivity to evil, are as parts." 

It is quite unnecessary for us to dwell upon these citations ; they 
speak for themselves. But in view especially of the last, we re- 



116 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



quest that our readers will consider the subjoined allegation of Dr. 
Hodge.: " Old Calvinists did make two sins, first, the sin of Adam, 
and secondly, inherent depravity resulting from it. The former is 
ours forensically in the eye of the law, the latter morally. The 
former is never said to he in us vere peccatum ; the latter by Cal- 
vinists always." 1 Such is the unfortunate result of confounding, 
as Dr. Hodge does, the terms "first sin," or "Adam's sin," as em- 
ployed in their theology, with a peccatum alienum, or Adam's 
merely personal sin — " the one sin of the one man." It is incon- 
ceivable that a properly trained or well informed theologian should 
so read their theology as to do this. And certainly it never had 
been clone during all the past centuries by any one in the long 
array of the illustrious theologians of the Augustinian church un- 
til the Princeton Professor led the way. But to do it must inevi- 
tably lead to that concatenation of fatal mistakes and most morti- 
fying blunders into which Dr. Hodge has fallen. But we proceed 
to our next witness. 

2. Maresius (Des Marets). 

This eminent divine, the co temporary of Altingius, is justly re- 
garded as one of the ablest defenders of the doctrines of grace 
against the assaults of the Socinians and Remonstrants, which in 
his day were of the most violent character. In his Exposition of 
the JBelgic Confession (Article XV.), and in replying to an objec- 
tion, he remarks that " Original sin may be accounted voluntary 
in a three-fold manner — subjectively, consequently r , and (after ex- 
plaining these terms he adds) antecedently in Adam as the root, head 
and stalk of our origin, in whom and through whom, whilst we 
willed the transgression of the divine law, ive willed also the 
extinction of original righteousness, and that corruption of nature 
which followed the sin itself Sin is dvo/xta (the transgres- 

sion of the law). But even this also is such, since it conflicts with 
that perfect sanctity and perfection which the law demands," etc. 2 

Thus strongly and directly, and in the very face of the Socinian 
and Remonstrant oppugners of the Church doctrine, he lays down 
her explanatory principle — the participation of the race in the sin 
and fall of our first parents — as furnishing the real ground of 
explanation, not only of our pollution and condemnation, but like- 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, page 177. 

2 Confess. Eccles. Belgicorum Exegesis, page 222; (G-ronigce, 1652). 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



117 



wise of the exhibition of God's punitive justice in regard to us. 
The sarcasm and denunciation with which his antagonists treated 
the principle itself were esteemed by him unworthy of notice, 
further than to remark in passing that " it was not without reason 
the words corruption of nature and hereditary blemish (vitium) are 
employed in this article, first, that it should not be thought, as 

Flacius Illyricus insanely imagined, etc Fourth, That 

original sin should not be placed only in the guilt of Adam's trans- 
gression deservedly imputed to his posterity, because all have sin- 
ned in him, (Rom. v. 12; 1 Cor. xv. 22,) as Levi was tithed in 
the loins of Abraham." 1 

The following extract is somewhat extensive, but invested with 
much interest in the connection, from its reference to Placseus and 
Pivetus on the one hand, and to the supralapsarianism of Szyd- 
lovius and certain Jesuits on the other, as maintaining that origi- 
nal corruption is derived "ex nudo Dei cum homine pacto" — from 
our mere covenant relation to Adam. 

After explaining the more general sense of the phrase " original 
sin," he says, "Wherefore it was not wholly without ground that 
the National Synod of the French churches, being convened in the 
years 1611 and 1615, at Natrona of Charenton, decreed that those 
should not be admitted into the sacred ministry who would not 
acknowledge this imputation of the first sin. And although 
Curcelheus may deride the synodical decree, and the reverend and 
learned Josua Plaeaeus, Professor at Saumur, (who had given oc- 
casion for the assembling of the Synod,) assailed with great effort 
that imputation itself; yet- the blessed Pivetus, in the year 1616, 
in a work prepared expressly for this purpose, established the 
equity of that decree by a great number of testimonies of theologi- 
ans. There is no doubt that the effect of this imputation may be 
from God {ex parte Dei) in some respect, because men are bom 
destitute of original righteousness; and the consequence is that 
native corruption should be propagated through generation, in which 
sense Augustine (Pet. lib. L, cap. 13,) says, that it is sin in such a 
vjay as to be also the punishment of sin." 

" 7. For by taking original sin as it is here taken, in the stricter 
signification, the imputation of the first sin will indeed pertain to 
it antecedently, yet not formally; nor cam it subjectively enter to 

1 Confess. Eccles. Belgicorum Exegesis, page 222; (G-roniga?, 1652). 



118 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



any one otherwise than as a hereditary vice through generation. 
For what Szydlovius (Vindic, Cap. 7), affirms, that it is so propa- 
gated by imputation, is too shallow to deserve a minute refuta- 
tion. 1 For divine imputation, seeing that it is an act of justice, 

NEITHER PRINCIPALLY NOR INSTRUMENTALLY PRODUCES NATIVE COR- 
RUPTION, inhering to each f rom his mother^ s womb, nor propagates 

IT IN EVERY ONE OF THE POSTERITY OF AdAM. Bat it Only subjects 

them to guilt and obligation to punishment on account of the sin 
of the first man, which all committed in him. (Imputatio enim 
divina cum sit actus, justitise, nee principaliter nec instrumentaliter 
producit ipsam nativem corruptionem cuique ab utero matris in- 
haBrentem, nec propagat earn in singulis posteris Adami ; sed tan- 
tem illos subjicit reatui et obligationi ad paenam propter pecca- 
tum primi hominis quod omnes in ipso commisserunt.) The actual 
guilt of that sin pertains to every one from imputation. But as, be- 
sides the imputation of the righteousness of Christ for the remis- 
sion of sins, we obtain, by the benefit of regeneration, that right- 
eousness inherent to each which is named saiictification, but which 
as yet is imperfect, and, therefore, not that through which we 
stand before God ; so, besides the imputation of that sin of which 
all from their origin are guilty before God, that inherent vice, 

DERIVED TO ALL THROUGH GENERATION, NOT FROM THE NAKED COVE- 
NANT of god with man, as the Jesuits affirm, against whom Jan- 
senius disputed (lib. I. de statu naturae lapsa, cap. 5, et seq., 2 ) 
but from the nature of the thing and from the law of natural and 
ordinary generation itself (quam univocam merito dixeris, quod 
fiat semine virili et ex concubitu maris et fenrinse), by which man 
should reproduce his own likeness ; and now, therefore, the sinner 
begets one that is corrupted and a sinner, according to the remark 
of Augustine (lib. II. operis imperf. contra Julian), 'From the 
begetting the child is born drawing original sin ; by vice propa- 

1 The argument of Szydlovius in the chapter referred to by Maresius, and 
which he here refutes, is thus stated by himself : " Peccatum originale ab Ad- 
amo non propagatur in eos. per corpus, quia illud contradistincte ad animam 
non est capax peccati ; non per animam, quia ilia pura a Deo creatur, nul- 
loque modo a corpore utpote spiritus, infici potest. Ergo per imputationem." 
Let the reader here note how Maresius handles it. Concerning Szydlovius, 
see Danville Review for 1861, pp. 567-569. 

2 Compare Princeton Essays, First Series, page 187. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 119 

• r ^ 

gating vice, God creating the nature.' And therefore generation 
holds its position here, not only that it may be as a condition sine 
qua non for the imputation of the first sin; but as the medium by 
which, or the cause through which this blot may be transmitted 
and propagated with human nature itself, whose necessary adjunct 
it lias become. " (Pp. 224, 225.) 

We state only an obvious truth when we say that, had this whole 
passage been prepared expressly in refutation of Dr. Hodge's tke- 
orv throughout, it could not have been more directly in antao*- 
onism thereto. And these antagonisms meet and remorselessly 
assail him in every point of his development and elucidation of 
that theory, as can be evidenced by scores of citations from his 
writings, if it were at all necessary for this purpose to add ace 
others besides what are given in the different parts of this work. 
Let a single instance in illustration suffice. Dr. Hodge (as we 
have shown) affirms that " The constant answer to the objection 
to the doctrine of creation derived from the transmission of sin 
made by the Reformed (or Calvinistic) theologians is, that origi- 
inal sin is propagated, xeque per corpus, neque per animam, sed 
per cuxpam," (the capitals are his), a principle upon which his 
whole theory is based, and one which has been by him inculcated 
until it has become, in a manner, canonical with his followers. And 
it is moreover true that, without such a representation of the mat- 
ter, the claim that his theory is identical with the approved doc- 
trine of the Church must be hopelessly surrendered. And yet the 
statement itself is without" even the shadow of a foundation in 
fact ; nor can Dr. Hodge verify it by any reference even approxi- 
mating fact. The manner in which the Reformed divines always 
regarded and treated it is apparent from the passage before us, in 
which MaresiuSj on behalf of the Church, and in expounding its 
then great symbol of doctrine, takes up this very idea as then ad- 
vanced by Szydlovius, and refutes and rejects it as altogether alien 
from Augustinian doctrine. The same is true in regard to Dr. 
Hodge's exposition of the analogy in Rom. v. 12-19. Maresius 
here presents the exposition recognized by the Church, and it is 
directly subversive of that offered by Dr. Hodge for the purpose 
of sustaining his theory. And so on throughout the passage. 

3. Calvix. 

In our previous work we cited largely the testimony of Calvin ; 



120 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



but here a few brief extracts will suffice. He says: "We have 
already proved that original sin is the pravity and corruption of 
our nature, which first makes us guilty of the wrath of God, and 
then also brings forth in us those works which the Scriptures call 
the works of the flesh." 1 

" Thus it is certain that Adam was not only the progenitor, but, 
as it were, the root of mankind, and therefore that all the race 

were vitiated in his corruption He who pronounces that 

we were dead in Adam, now, at the same time openly testifies also 
that we were implicated in the taint of sin (peccati labe esse im- 
plicitis); for neither could condemnation reach to those who zoere 
touched with no blame of iniquity. No other explanation, there- 
fore, can be given of our being said to be dead in Adam than that? 
his transgression procured not only misery and ruin to himself, but 
precipitated our nature also to a like destruction ; and that not by 

HIS INDIVIDUAL GUILT, WHICH PERTAINS NOT TO US (neqiie id SUO UnillS 

vitio, quod nihil ad nos pertineat), but because he infected all his 
descendants with the corruption into which he had fallen. Other- 
wise there would be no truth in the statement of Paul, that all are 
by nature children of wrath, if they had not been already under 
the curse before they were born." 2 

If this be Calvinistic theology, then, as the gratuitous imputation 
of sin is fundamentally its opposite, there can be no question that 
this theory has in no sense a claim to be regarded as such. Calvin, 
as Schaff has well remarked, always guards against the supposition 
that we are condemned by an arbitrary imputation of a foreign act 
personal to Adam. 3 And it may be added, that with equal care 
he guards against the supposition that the depravity, and conse- 
quent inability to obtain justification by law, which the Scriptures 
ascribe to the unregenerate, exempts them from blame, as it must 
do had it come upon them solely from without ; and on the con- 
trary affirms that it is truly an enhancement of their guilt. 

4. M. F. Wendeline. 

In his theology, which, ever since its first appearance (an. 1633), 
has been a highly valued text-book in the Calvinistic schools, he 
says: "Sin is original or actual. Original sin is a blot (labes) 
which man draws with him from his mother's womb from his first 

1 Institv, lib. IV., cap. 15, § 10. 2 Ibid., lib. II., cap. I., p. 193. 
3 In Lange on Romans (Scribner's edition), p. 193. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS . 



121 



origin or nativity. It is imputed or inherent. Original sin im- 
puted is the disobedience of Adam and Eve, which is imputed to 
all their posterity, no otherwise than as if they themselves had also 
violated in act the law of God concerning the not eating of the 
■fruit of the interdicted tree/"' (Theses 2— 5. 1 ) 

Thus both imputed and inherent sin are inherited, and descend 
to us by propagation. In his note on the last of these theses 
Wendeline cites Rom. v. 12, and remarks that this passage must 
refer to the aforesaid imputation, inasmuch as we could not then 
sin in act ; and that hence the theologians state that Adam did not 
sin as a single person. And then, in answering the objection that 
the actual sin of Adam was not original sin to his posterity (pec- 
catum illud actuale Adami non esse in posteros peccatum originale), 
he employs the reduetio ad absurdum, and shows that it is imputed 
justly (juste imputatur), 1, Because Adam represented his poster- 
ity; and 2, Because by nature we all approve of the disobedience 
of Adam, and incline to the same. He then, in thesis 6, defines 
inherent sin as a '•'hereditary corruption naturally propagated to 
us (naturaliter in nos propagata) from the fall of our first parents, 
rendering us exposed (reos ) to temporal and eternal punishments." 
And under thesis 11 he says, "That this hereditary evil, or blot, 
inhering in all men, even from their very birth, is properly called 
sin, is proved, 1, Because it conflicts with the law of God, which 

requires the perfect image of God in man 2, Because it 

renders us obnoxious to the divine anger (Eph. ii. 3), in which we 
are called children of wrath by nature. 3, Because it is con- 
demned in Scripture 4, Because many infants die before 

birth; but no one dies except the sinner (at nemo moritur nisi pec- 
cator), for death is the wages of sin, i. e., the punishment due to 
sin. 5, Because baptism is to be applied to infants also ; but there 
could be no»need of this unless they were sinners, (nisi peccatores)P 

Then, in reply to the objection that, as sin is the vice of the 
parents, it cannot therefore be transferred to their offspring, since 
the virtues of parents, — their piety, learning, temperance, etc., — 
are never thus propagated, he says: "The consequence is denied. 
The reason offered does not sustain it; for the sin which we call 
original is natural to man after the fall, and pertains to the entire 
species, as is apparent from Scripture. Virtues, however, are not 

1 Christiana Tlieologia, lib. I., cap. X. (Leyden, 1658.) 



122 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



natural, but are acquired by practice or infused through grace ; 
so that they are personal, and pertain to the individual, and there- 
fore are not propagated. Hence, amongst men, numerous diseases 
are propagated from parents to children, as is apparent from the 
leprosy, etc. Neither are the actual sins of parents propagated, 
but only the original. 

The following passage is from page 244, where, in reply to the 
objection that if the nature of man be corrupt from its origin, it 
must be a corruption of either body or soul, he makes this impres- 
sive remark, affirming the basis of the great explanatory principle 
aforesaid. We present it to our readers in his own language: 
" Kesp. Corruptum ab utero hominem esse, evidentibus Scripturse 
testimoniis probavimus. Quibus acquiescere possemus, si vel 
maxime mod urn propagatce hujus corruptionis igrwraremus : 
Nam in Theologis earum rerum, quas Deus in verbo no?i revela- 
vit, ignorantia nulli nocet, neque quicquam fidei prcejudicat" 

5. Molin,eus, (Du Moulin). 

In his celebrated Anatomy of Arminianism? this most learned 
and accomplished theologian presents the following exposition of 
the Calvinistic doctrine on the subject before us: Original sin is 
the depravation of man's nature, contracted and drawn from the 
very generation itself, and derived from Adam to all mankind,, 
consisting of the privation or want of original righteousness and ' 
the proneness to evil." (See chapter 8, § 1.) " This guilt, oblig- 
ing to punishment, cannot be any part of the definition of original 

Sin, SEEING IT rs THE EFFECT OF IT." (§ 6.) 

"Seeing, therefore, the death of infants is a punishment of 
original sin, if original sin were not truly sin, but only the punish- 
ment of sin, then the death of infants would be the punishment of 
a punishment, and not the punishment of sin. But to say that 
God doth punish punishments, and not sins, is uncomely for any 
who profess themselves to be maintainers of God's justice." (§ 14.) 
" Original sin also may be said to be voluntary ; because by it we 
sin voluntarily, and also because we sinned in Adam, and, there- 
fore, in him were desirous of this corruption" (§15.) " We so 
sinned in Adam in poiver (potentially) that also the sin was in us 
in act; neither do we only bear the punishment of another'' s sin, 
but also our own" (Chapter 9, § 7.) 

1 I cite this work as translated by Newberry, (London, 1620.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS . 



123 



Our readers will observe that this is urged by the author against 
the Socinian notion, recently then adopted by the Arminians, of 
a merely forensic imputation of Adam's personal sin, or peccatum 
alienum, to his posterity, and in reply to their objections against 
the doctrine of our participation in the first sin. At that period 
his statements were truly Calvinistic. 

The Eeformed church has no name amongst the best and great- 
est of her sons more venerated, and none whose influence as a man 
of God, as a scholar, and as a theologian stands higher than that 
of Peter du Moulin} The forecited work was not only approved 
and endorsed by the Faculty of Leyden University, but highly 
esteemed by the Dordrecht divines, and who, in speaking of the 
author and his works, employ (in sessions 143, 144,) the following 
terms : " Pro accuratissimo judicio suo et consensu in doctrina 
gratias egeret." Bivetus, his kinsman and intimate friend, has 
cited his testimony, 2 and placed it amongst his most honored and 
conspicuous witnesses against the errors of Placaeus. And Dr. 
Hodge himself (in 1839), when making extracts from that work, 
in order, as he said, to exhibit its character, could not venture to 
omit this testimony, though he expresses dissent from its doctrine, 3 
and has appended thereto the following remark: "It is evident 
that he acknowledges imputation with inherent depravity con- 
joined; but in his Anatomy of Arminianism he asserts the doc- 
trine of imputation professedly, and spends one whole chapter in 
its defence" 4 

I would do no injustice to Dr. Hodge ; but if this language ha& 
a meaning, as of course it claims to have, it certainly (as it seems 
to me) conveys the impression that Molinasus, in the Anatomy y 
asserts the doctrine of imputation in a form in ichich it is not, as 
here, conjoined with dep>ravity ; i. e., that he therein asserts it in 
the sense claimed by Dr. Hodge as the true one, — that is gratuit- 
ous imputation. But in that whole work of Molinaeus there is not 
a single utterance to sustain any such intimation. In the passage 

1 See the Danville Review for 1862. pp. 531-534. 

2 From his Euodatio Qucest. de peccato originali. The extract is given 
above in our § 10, No 6. 

3 It was first published by Dr. Hodge in the Biblical Repository, with 
a mistranslation, obscuring the sense, and which is still perpetuated in the 
Princeton Essays. 

* See the Princeton Essays, First Series, page 206. 



124 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION . 



from his Euodatio, as cited by Rivetus, and translated (as above 
stated) by Dr. Hodge, he says: "We sinned in Adam, and in him 
willed this depravation." And in the Anatomy he says: "We 
sinned in Adam, and therefore in him willed this depravation." 

Dr. Hodge, moreover, made the foregoing representation, as his 
words evince, with the following declaration of Bivetus directly 
under his eye: "Negat quidam Molinceus solam imputationem : sed 
earn agnoscit ac probat cum corruptione conjunctam, quod fecit sy- 
nodus : agnoscit enim nos in Adamo pecasse, ac proinde in eo vo- 
luisse banc depravationem. Paulo ante dixerat, nec sane Deus 
Adami posteris imputant peccatnm Adami, nisi haberent in se 
aliquid quod esset vere peccatum : et nisi natura essent mali. 

"Agnoscit ergo imputationetn cum inhoerente malitia conj u?ictam, 
sed ex profosso, hanc imputationem assertt in Anatomia Armi- 
nianismi toto capite nono, ubi earn asserit argumentis ex Scriptura 
et ratione petitis, et adversariorum Remonstrantium objectionibus 
respondit, quse non opus et describere cum de eo omnibus con- 
stat." 1 Such are the facts. 

The forecited remark of' Dr. Hodge likewise represents the 
view as presented by Molinaeus as exceptional to that of the 
Church in general, as presented by Rivetus in this very work of 
his on the Testimonies on Imputation ; and as exceptional to theirs 
on the ground that a he acknowledges imputation with inherent 
depravity conjoined; 2 and he cites in support of this statement 
these words of Rivetus, though in this very passage Rivetus (ob- 
viously alluding to the unfounded assertion of Placseus that the 
Church herself was at that time recognizing such a doctrine) af- 
firms that Molinseus truly denies imputation alone, 2 but approves 
it as conjoined with corruption, which, says he, the Synod [i. e., 
of Charenton, which condemned the error of Placseus] has done" 
<3tc. And that in the Anatomy he asserts the same imputation 

1 See Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 206. Also the tractate of Rivetus 
in Opp., Tom. III., 799, seq., which, since the issue of my former work, I 
have had the opportunity to consult, having been apprized by the late excel- 
lent Dr. Allen, Professor of Theology in Lane Seminary, that it was in the 
library of that institution. 

8 Even Principal Cunningham (with others in Scotland) was utterly misled 
by this representation of Dr. Hodge, as we shall have occasion to show in the 
sequel. 

3 See the citation from Calvin in § 9, No. 5, above. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS . 



125 



through a whole chapter, by arguments derived from both Scrip- 
ture and reason, and replies to the objections of the Remonstrant 
adversaries, — thus clearly affirming that the doctrine thus pre- 
sented by Molinceus in his Euodatio and in his Anatomy of Ar- 
minianism (and which are cited by us above) is the very doctrine 
recognized by the Synod {and by the whole Calvinistic church) in 
its condemnation of the doctrine of Placceus. 

Further remark on this truly painful subject is certainly unne- 
cessary ; yet it may be added in illustration, that "Wallseus, a col- 
league of Rivetus, in replying to the assault of the Arminian, 
Corvinus, upon this work of Molin^eus, reiterates and defends spe- 
cifically every position in its argument, and most emphatically the 
point here before us (as the Arminians with great vehemence as- 
sailed the doctrine of our participation in the first sin), respecting 
which he says: "The guilt of the first sin to condemnation, and, 
as the apostle speaks, 'the judgment unto condemnation' (Rom. v. 
16), cannot be imputed to posterity unless that vitiosity of inherent 
sin intervene : seeing that the justice of God will not permit that 
the first sin should be imputed for condemnation to a posterity 
having no sin in themselves." 1 Wallseus, moreover, before he 
published this Reply, submitted it to the examination of his col- 
leagues — Polyander, Rivetus, and Thysius — in the university, and 
it came forth with their high endorsement and recommendation, 
in which they say, " Quam non dubitamus orthodoxis omnibus 
prout meretur gratissimam et acceptissimam fore." 2 

In view of facts like these, which meet us at every step, our 
readers must make up their own minds as to the theological posi- 
tion assumed by Dr. Hodge, and to the propriety and decency, 
moreover, of his denouncing as in fatal and fundamental error 
those who refuse to recognize as the doctrine of the Augustinian 
church his theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin. But as we 
begin to find that it is requisite either to abridge the number of 
authors whom we had marked for citation, or to cut down the 
citations themselves (as our limits absolutely forbid a continuation 
of such extended extracts and remarks), we shall pursue the latter,, 
and curtail our quotations. 

1 See Opera Wallasi, Tom. II., p. lb\, folio. (Leyden, 1643.) 

2 See ibid., p. 76, and likewise Polyander's funeral oration on the death of 
"Wallasub (prefixed to Vol, I.), page 4. 



126 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



6. Heidegger (John Henry) is our next witness, and who, after 
adverting to the then recently made distinction of mediate and 
immediate imputation, says: "But the imputation of the Adamic 
si?i does not follow, but precede inherent corruption as the meri- 
torious cause of it. For the first sin is not imputed to us because 
we are born corrupt, but we are born corrupt because the first sin 
is imputed to us for corruption and condemnation. For impu- 
tation consists in this : that God has, with sinning Adam, adjudged 
his posterity (because implicated in the same sin) not to be worthy 
of the divine image, but rather of the whole punishment by which 
he punished sinning Adam, and therefore to be punished with 
spiritual death." 1 This is precisely the immediate imputation 
taught in the Formula Consensus Helvetica; and our readers can 
perceive how utterly it differs from the gratuitous imputation 
scheme of Dr. Hodge, but with which he has so unfortunately 
-endeavored to identify it. God, says Heidegger, finds both Adam 
and his posterity alike implicated in the first sin, and therefore 
adjudges them alike to punishment. Dr. Hodge says : " His 
(Adam's) sin was not our sin. Its guilt does not belong to us 
personally. It is imputed to us as something not our own, a 
peccatum alienum, and the penalty of it, the forfeiture of the Di- 
vine favor, the loss of original righteousness, and spiritual death, 
are its sad consequences." " The sin of Adam did not make the 
condemnation of all men merely possible : it was the ground of 
their actual condemnation." 2 

7. Peter Van Mastricht, in the estimation of the Church, 
stands in the same high rank with the theologians already cited. 
In his great work — Theoretico-Practico Theologia* — he likewise 
affirms that Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity because it 
was a common sin. In the exposition of Horn. v. 12, with which 
the chapter begins, he remarks that the cause on account of which 
all die is because all sinned. Then, in § 10 (cap. 2,) he thus pro- 
ceeds : After remarking that two things are comprehended in the 
first sin, the guilt (reatum) or desert of condemnation which we 
have from Adam, and the stain and corruption (labem ac tabem) 
inherent in us, he adds, " The former is commonly called original 

1 Corpus Theologice, loco X.. cited in De Moor, III., 277, 278. 

2 See his Theology, Vol. II., pp. 225, 551, 552. 

3 See lib. IV., cap. 2, (Amsterdam, 1715.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS . 



sin imputed, the latter original sin inherent. But imputation con- 
sists not in a mere putation, by which God may attribute the 
breach of the covenant, not to our first parents, but actually and 
personally to all their offspring likewise, for this would plainly be 
an error ; but that that breach of the covenant perpetrated in act 
by our first parents had been committed by all the posterity in 
him, as if in causa, and therefore the friendship of God, not only 
with our first parents, was lost, but with all mankind, etc. Sed 
quod fcedifragium illud, actu commissum a protoplastis, in eo velut 
in causa, fuerit commissum ab omnibus ejus posteris, adeoque 
amicitia Dei perierit, non modo cum protoplastis : sed cum toto 
mundo, ac propterea Deus imaginem suam non amplius contulerit 
ejus posteris ; et propter peccatum illud, quavis morte persequatur." 
(Page 344.) 

8. Paul Ferbius, in his Orthodox-Specimina, says, "We were 
all in the loins of Adam, and sinned in him and with him.'' And 
in his Scholast. Orthodox., as cited by Vcetius, 1 he says, " Conse- 
quently, it is impossible that such privation (of the Divine image) 
should be brought about by a natural or physical expulsion, and 
therefore there is a real cause of its [original sin's] transmission 
(traductionis ejus), which is admitted to be moral, and is either 
the general sin in which we have all transgressed in ^Ld am, or 
natural propagation Whence also it appears that the ac- 
tual sin itself, by which we all transgressed in him, has directly 
caused this original sin; also that generation or propagation is 
only applicative, to-wit : by substituting the subject in whom that 
common sin may produce its effect." Thus, according to this emi- 
nent divine, the actual sin in which we all participated in Adam 
has produced original sin, or the corruption of nature, which is 
transmitted by propagation on account of the community of that sin. 

9. Keckekmax. 

Dr. Hodge, in his Theology, cites this celebrated theologian, 
but not on the subject before us. We shall present his testimony 
in his own language ; for while it fully concurs with all the pre- 
ceding, the scholar will be gratified to possess the original docu- 
ment. We present the Thteses (or Canones) without the notes. 
He says: 

"Sic de peccato in genere: est autem vel originis vel actuale. 
1 Select® Disputationes, Tom. I., page 1112, (Uitrecht, 1641). 



128 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Peccatum originis sive originale est, quod a prima sua origine 
homo secum trahit. 
" Hujus canon est: 

" Originis peccatum gravius est peccato actuali itaque et hinc 
debetnr aeterna poena. Estque vel imputatum vel inhaerens. 

" Peccatum originis imputatum, est ipsa defectio sive prima 
praevaricatio ab Adamo et Eva esu fructus vetiti commissa ; sed 
toti postea humano generi ex duabus istisprimis personis natualiter 
prognatio imputata. 

" Canon de peccato originis imputato est: 

" Quod Adamo fuerit personale ; nobis autem sit naturale. 

"Peccatum originale inhaerens, est dispositio proclivis human- 
arum facultatum ad malum, orta ex privatione earum virium, quas 
ad bonum ante lapsum homo obtinebat. 

" Canones de hoc peccato sunt : 

"1. Peccatum originis inhaerens, habet se instar defectus, non 
actualis, sed potentialis sive habitualis. 

" 2. Peccatum originis diverso respectu et naturale est homini 
et praeternaturale. 

" 3. Subjectum hujus peceati, est totus homo. 

" 4. Propagatur hoc peccatum a parentibus in sobolem ratione 
principii sui." 

On this last canon Keckerman remarks : " Rectissime dixit 
Augustinus (lib. de Morib. Ecclesiae, cap. 22,) Nihil peccato origi- 
nati ad prcedicandum ?iotius, nihil ad intelli gen dura secretins. Id. 
quod praecipue verum est de modo, quo peccatum originis a paren- 
tibus in prolem propagatur : haec enim questio tarn est intricata, 
tamque difficilis, ut praestantissimi et acutissimi quique viri ultro 
fateantur sese modum ilium ignorare. Nam ut nihil dicam de 
aliio, clarissimus ille Wilhelminus Witakerus, libro primo de pec- 
cato originis, capite YIIL, ita inquit : Quemadmodum ab Adamo 
ad posteros peccatum propagatuw, fuerit, magis credi debet, quam 
gucsri ; et quceri facilius quam intelligi potest ; et melius intelli- 
gitur, quam explicatur" 1 

The difficulty here and thus alluded to by these eminent men, 
is in like manner referred to by the profound Pascal as follows : 
"It is an astonishing thought that the mystery farthest removed 

1 Systema S. S. Theologian, lib. II., cap. V., Editio tertia, pp. 251, usque 
ad 257, Hanovice, 1607. 



Expository statements. 



129 



from our apprehension, the transmission of original sin, is a fact, 
without the knowledge of which we can never satisfactorily know 
ourselves ! For undoubtedly nothing appears so revolting to our 
reason as to say that the trangression of the first man imparted 
guilt to those who, from their extreme distance from the source 
of evil, seem incapable of such a participation. This transmission 
seems to us not only impossible, but unjust, .... and yet, with- 
out this mystery, of all others the most incomprehensible, we are 
incomprehensible to ourselves. The complicated knot of our con- 
dition has its mysterious folds in this abyss, so that man is more 
incomprehensible without this mystery, than is the mystery itself 
to man." 1 

We could add scores of equally impressive testimonies from the 
great and the good of the past centimes, evincing that by the 
whole Augustinian church the difficulty has ever been regarded 
as insuperable by all the appliances of reason and philosophy. 
But now, as it would seem (and the remark is not uncalled for in 
the connection, but deserving of deep consideration), it is to be 
solved in our communion by the acceptance of the gratuitous im- 
putation scheme ! For now it has amongst us become consistent 
with a claim to the most rigid orthodoxy: 1, To deny that sin, or 
moral corruption, either is or can be propagated at all by genera- 
tion (as the Church has always held, though Pelagius denounced 
the sentiment as u i?isane") ; and 2, To affirm that it is transmitted 
"neque per corpus, neque per a?iima?n, sed per culpam;" that is, 
solely by imputation. God imputes to the race f orensically Adam's 
personal sin, then abandons them in consequence of that imputa- 
tion, and thus inherent moral corruption becomes the clear logical 
result. There is, therefore, now no longer any mystery as to how 
we then sinned, or as to how we now are brought to inherit the 
result. Thus has Dr. Hodge, in his Theology, carried forth " the 
strength of the Calvinistic system, especially of that type of Re- 
formed theology known as the federal or representative system," 
as we are informed by an article signed " L. H. A.," in the Pres- 
byterian Quarterly and Princeton Pevieio (for 1872, page 789). 
In such style as this has the time-honored phrase, "the federal 
and representative system," now become degraded, and made to 
conceal the introduction into the midst of our communion of the 
1 Thoughts on Keligion, Part II., Chapter V. 

9 



130 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



foul and loathsome dregs of blank Socinianism. The transparent 
folly and illiteracy of the assertion will at once present themselves 
to the reader who will but reflect, that if such be really a carrying 
forth of the strength of the Calvinistic system, the grand old 
divines of the Reformation, if they had but opened their eyes, had 
not far to look in order to receive a complete solution of the dif- 
ficulty aforesaid. For Socinus and his school, and still later the 
whole school of the Remonstrants, had adopted this same forensic 
gratuitous imputation scheme, 1 and on the ground thus furnished, 
denounced and ridiculed the Church doctrine of our participation 
in the sin of Adam, and the consequent transmission of native cor- 
ruption by generation, which, in fact, constitute the very nucleus 
of the mighty problem referred to. We have now, however, 
caught up with them in carrying forward the strength of our 
system, though it has required several centuries to do so. 
Whether we shall yet distance them in the race as has been re- 
peatedly done in other and Like instances, must be left to the deci- 
sion of time. 

10. Matthias Martinius. 

In the notes to this theologian's method, (Theologaa, lib. III., 
cap. 19), he says: "But I know that original sin is propagated 
from our parents by the just judgment of God, who, as He after 
the fall deprived of wisdom and saving righteousness the souls of 
Adam and Eve, which were created in purity, so He likewise de- 
prived their natural posterity of the same. This is a p>unishment 
(which is sin) such as ice have deserved, forasmuch as we have de- 
served this blindness and incapacity for good, and forasmuch as 
we still are delighted with it, and, as if the thing should be 
pleasantly borne, esteem ourselves to be wise and just." 2 

11. Piscator, of Herborn. 

In his Observations on Rom. v., he says : " Here are to be noted 
the testimonies concerning the former part of original ein, which 
is the revolt of all the natural heirs of Adeem in his loins. But 
as to the latter part, which is the corruption of nature which fol- 
lowed from that revolt, the testimonies may be seen under Chap- 
ter vii. 7, and the verses following. Therefore it is in respect to 
the defection that the apostle speaks in this place, when he says, 

1 The evidence of this will be fully presented in §§ 18-22, infra. 

2 Cited by Vcetius, Selectse Disputationes, Tom. I., page 1111. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS . 



131 



that by one, to-wit, Adam, sin has entered into the world. Also, 
in t. 16, he says that the guilt vjas from the one fall, to-wit, 
Adam's, to condemnation ; but he speaks of the guilt of the whole 
human race (loquitur autem de reatu totius generis humani." 
(Page 468.) 

12. Gtisbebt Y(ETros 3 though a strenuous supralapsarian, affirms 
clearly the same explanatory principle of the Reformed church on 
the subject. He says : "And this I regard as the higher cause to 
which we must ascend when it is asked why Christ, equally as 
other men, was not exposed to sin ? Let it be replied, that by the 
justice of God He did not incur that penalty which all incurred. 
If it be asked, why He did not incur it \ I answer, that it was be- 
cause He neither sinned in Adam, nor was reckoned and regarded 
as in the head and root of the first covenant, and consequently the 
judgment and guilt of the first sin did not pass to him." 1 

13. Urslntjs, in his JExplicatio Catech. (ad Qusest. 7), says: 
"We justly suffer the punishment of Adam's fault : 1, Because we 
all approve and follow his fault ; 2, The fault is so Adam's that 
it is also ours, for we were all in sinning Adam, and therefore, as 
the apostle testified, we have all sinned in him." 

14. GoMAurs. 

As the occasion will occur in another part of the argument to 
cite the testimony of this eminent theologian somewhat fully, we 
shall adduce here but a single remark. Xear the close of his ex- 
position of Bom. v. he says: "But we deny that the reason is 
certainly the same ; because a particular disobedience in Adam 
suffices for the desert of the anger of God and eternal death, which 
was also expiated by the particular punishment of Christ, when 
He bore what Adam and ice in common had deserved ; but for 
obtaining eternal life a particular obedience does not suffice; it 
must, as we have seen, be universal." 2 

15. Hoorxbecx. 

As regards the testimony of this eminent and excellent divine, 
it will suffice here to cite the caption of Section X. of Chapter 
VII. of his Instil. Theol. (Leyden, 1658), which is as follows: "It 
was a common sin of the ivhole nature in Adam, not of himself 
alone." 1 

1 Selecta? Disput., Tom. L, p. lilt. 

2 Opp., Tom. I., p. 406. (Amsterdam, 1664.) 



132 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



16. Byissenius. 

Iii his reply to the perpetually repeated objection to the Church 
doctrine by the Socinians and Remonstrants of his day, who, how- 
ever, were therein only repeating the speculations of certain scho- 
lastics to whom he here also refers, 'to-wit : that God, of His own 
sovereign will, can condemn the innocent, and that therefore " God is 
able to impute the sin of Adam" (that is, as a peccatum alienum), 
he says : " I answer, that that sin is accounted ours because it is 
truly ours (quod re vera nostrum est), as the children of servants 
are servants, and the sons of citizens are citizens ; and are so ac- 
counted." 1 

But here the scholastic (as Pighius or Catharinus) or the Soci- 
nian objector, or both, would defend the gratuitous imputation of 
sin on the assumption that God of His sovereign will and pleasure 
could forensically impute Aclam's personal sin to the race ; to 
which, however, Byissenius replies, that He does impute it, but 
that the ground of the imputation is that it is truly ours, i. e., by 
participation. It is not imputed, therefore, in order to constitute 
us guilty, as Dr. Hodge so preposterously teaches, but because we 
are guilty. The sin is already ours before the imputation takes 
place. 

Then, on page 77, he introduces and discusses the question, 
" Whether all men have so sinned in Adam that this sin ought to 
be accounted the sin of all?" In reply he says: "The ancient 
Pelagians insisted that the sin of Adam harmed only himself, and 
not his posterity. The Socinians plainly jdeny that the whole hu- 
man race sinned in Adam [i. e., except putatively or forensically]. 
The Anabaptists likewise deny that the posterity are guilty on 
account of the fall of our first parents. The Remonstrants indeed 
retain the name imputation, but abolish the thing itself," — ?. g., 
they retain and insist on (precisely as Dr. Hodge does) the judicial 
or forensic imputation of Adam's personal guilt, while they at the 
same time deny our participation in the first sin, which is a real 
denial of the doctrine of immediate imputation as entertained and 
taught by the Church. 

He then refers to Placseus, and shows that he likewise re- 
jected the Church doctrine of the imputation of the Adamic sin, 
and bases the condemnation of the race solely on the ground that 
1 Summa Theologise, loco IX., page 74. (Date of the copy lost.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



133 



the posterity inherit from fallen Adam a corrupt nature ; and justly 
remarks in relation to this view, that if we are constituted guilty 
before God, and become obnoxious to penal justice on account of 
the hereditary corruption which we draw from Adam, there is no 
proper imputation, which is clearly so, the act being simply one 
of arbitrary condemnation. And he adds : " We teach that the 
actual sin of Adam is in very deed so imputed to all who descend 
from him by ordinary generation, that on account of it we all are 
considered guilty, and are delivered over to punishment, or at least, 
regarded as worthy of it." 

This position he then establishes by a series of arguments, of 
which we here adduce the first two ; and in them our readers will 
perceive the sense in which he employs the phrase, Adarri s sin, 
in such connection. 

He says: "1. Paul teaches this in Rom. v. 12-14, 'As by one 
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death 
passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned;' where l<p w, 
whether it is rendered in quo, or eb quod, or quia, it amounts to 
the same thing. For the cause is rendered by the apostle why 
death has passed upon all and every one, to-wit: because all have 
sinned, not as actually or personally in themselves, for as yet they 
were not, hut in sinning Adam. 

"2. 'In Adam all die' (1 Cor. xv. 22), i. e., contract the guilt 
of condemnation and death. Thei^efore in him they also have sin- 
ned. For no one could deserve in another the punishment of death, 
unless he had had in him a common sin which is the cause of 
death" And thus, while maintaining in the most direct manner 
the imputation to us of Adam's sin, and our condemnation on ac- 
count of it, he affirms with equal directness our subjective guilt 
and participation in the first sin. These things are perfectly re- 
concilable (as we have shown) in Calvinistic theology, but totally 
irreconcilable and subversive of each other on the gratuitous im- 
imputation scheme taught by Catharinus, Crellius, and Dr. 
Hodge. 

It is most instructive to note here in this connection who were 
the assailants of this great doctrine which Ryissenius thus defends. 
They were not, in general, members of any evangelical com- 
munion, but Pelagians in the Papal church,' and Socmians and 
others (as named by him in a previous extract), who had apos- 



134 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



tatized from the churches of the Reformation. And further, it is 
no less so to observe how little those eminent and approved divines 
were moved to depart from their great explanatory principle by 
the ribaldry and idle denunciations of those assailants, or even in 
any degree to imitate their example by returning railing for rail- 
ing. All the sarcasm and accusations of teaching nonsense and 
unintelligible propositions, which their antagonists were per- 
petually repeating, were regarded by them as unworthy of a 
serious thought. 

17. Zanchius, in like manner with the forecited, makes original 
sin (that is, as he expresses it, the culpa, reatus, et defectus j ustitice 
originalis) to descend from our first parents to their offspring by 
propagation. We had designed here to lay before our readers the 
whole of his nine propositions, or theses de peccato originali, but 
can present only a brief extract or two. 

" II. The crime and guilt of Adam's sin is derived by heredi- 
tary law to all his posterity, naturally begotten, so that on account 
of his disobedience we are all truly sinners, and guilty of eternal 
death before God. 

"III. On account of that disobedience of Adam the privation 
of original righteousness and corruption of the whole man is de- 
rived, together with guilt, (or, to speak with the apostle and Au- 
gustine — concupiscence, for this single term includes both,) and 
that by propagation. 

""VI. In this, to-wit: original sin, are to be especially noted the 
formal and the material. The formal is the crime and guilt, but 
the material is concupiscence itself. 

" VII. This sin in us is not so another '«?, that is, Adam's, but that 
it is also our ovm; nor is so involuntary but that it is in a ce?^- 
tain sense voluntary also." 1 

18. Synopsis Purioris Theologize. 

"The form of original sin consists in that avo/ita and disobedience 
by which all sinned in Adam who were in him seminally ; which 
disobedience and crime, with the consequent guilt, was justly im- 
puted by God the Judge to all the sons of Adam, forasmuch as 
all had been and are one with him." (Page 157.) And thus, as 
appears from this and all the preceding citations, the moral and 
objective basis of the imputation is always recognized by the 

1 Opera. Tom. IX., pp. 675, 676 (folv. 1613.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



135 



Church theologians, and rejected only by Pelagians, Socinians, and 
others, who sympathized with their errors. 
19. Pabeus. 

In replying to Socinus, directly after that heresiarch had issued 
the last division of his work De Servatore, and after citing Eomans 
v. 12, and other passages, this eminent critic and theologian adds, 
" But these three things confirm us against the heretics. 

"I. That eternal death rushed (irruisse) upon all men through 
sin, as a punishment due and deserved for sin ; that it cannot be 
otherwise understood than concerning a desert of eternal death 
common to all on account of a si?i common to all. Therefore 
what the heretics assert, that all who are propagated from Adam 
die from no sin of their own, or of another,, is false. 

"II. That that sin by which guilt has been attracted to all his 
posterity, was not committed by Adam alone, but by all his posterity 
in Adam, because we were all in the loins of Adam, and were as 
if a part of Adam; and thus the sin of Adam was the sin of us 
all. Wherefore it was indeed another' } s, but it was likewise our 
own. 

u III. That, eternal death is not a punishment for Adam's first 
sin only, but is due likewise to all the subsequent sins of his pos- 
terity. For the expression, the wages of sin is death, plainly 
speaks of the sins of posterity. And it is most certain (as above 
shown), and promulgated plainly from God, that the soul that sin- 
neth it shall die. Hence we thus reason against the heretics : 
"Whosoever shall sin shall die on account of sin. (Ezek. xviii.) 
All have sinned in Adam by another's sin, and by their own. 
(Rom. v.) By another's sin, therefore, and by their own sin they 

all die, and that an eternal death, as many as shall die 

All the posterity of Adam likewise communicate with the offence 
of their parent, not only by participation of a sinful nature, but 
also by the act of sixxixo itself. For, as the apostle testifies, 
ive all have sinned in the one, because all were in the loins of sin- 
ning Adam. In him our whole nature stood and fell ; had been 
immortal, and is now dead. We all, therefore, when we suffer the 
punishment of his sin, suffer punishment for a sin not simply an- 
other's, but which is our own also. And it is said to be imputed 
to us all, not as simply another 's, but also as our own; neither as 
to the innocent, but as to companions in the crime, and who are 



136 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



one in guilt. For in the one all sinned. It is false, therefore, that 
it may not he imputed." 1 

And now, reader, in view of this passage, determine for yourself 
the question : Does not Pareus, in this refutation of the theory 
of Socinus, refute also the theory which Dr. Hodge has been in- 
culcating as the recognized doctrine of the Calvinistic church ? 
Can there be a more direct antithesis than is here presented through- 
out the passage to the scheme of the gratuitous imputation of sin, 
as taught and imperiously insisted on by the Princeton Professor ? » 
Let him, or any one who may sympathize with his views, point 
out even the vestige of a difference ! 

But further. This accomplished scholar and divine is here re- 
plying directly to the cavils of Socinus against the doctrine of our 
participation in the Adamic sin, and hence this full explication of 
that doctrine itself. But let us suppose now, for illustration, that 
the arch-heretic could have referred to some living and reputedly 
orthodox divine at Heidelberg or elsewhere, and cited him as say- 
ing that "the notion of such participation is unintelligible; that 
it does not rise to the dignity of a contradiction, and has no mean- 
ing at all; that it is Pantheistic, nonsensical, and impossible;' 5 and 
adding, in attempted enforcement of this tirade, that " it is a mon- 
strous evil to make the Bible contradict the common sense and 
common consciousness of men." And suppose, moreover, that 
while that divine was asserting all this he should still claim to 
agree with Pareus himself in his theological views, and to receive 
and defend the recognized doctrine of the Church, would not 
an occurrence of such a character clearly have demonstrated one or 
the other of the following points, to-wit : either that Pareus, after 
all, did not really disagree with Socinus in his theological views, 
and that the heresiarch did still retain the Church doctrine ; or 
that the divine whom Socinus had thus cited had plainly aban- 
doned the evangelical system on the great cardinal truth before 
us, and had gone over to the Socinian camp ? 

20. Peter Martyr. 2 

1 Comment, on Gen. ii. 17, page 74, col. 2 (1647). 

2 This and the eight following citations are from Eivetus, as given in the 
Princeton Repertory for 1839, and re-printed in Princeton Essays, First Se- 
ries, pp. 200, seq., though the doctrine itself is treated rather cavalierly in 
the note on page 172 of that volume. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS . 



13T 



"I admit that k<fi w (Rom. v. 12) is a causal particle, so that the 
sense may be that death has passed upon all men because all have 
sinned. ; for Chrysostom says, "By the fall of Adam, Paul has 
determined that other mortals who did not eat of the tree are in- 
fected ; and as a prudent physician, when about to administer for 
a particular disease, does not delay in the mere circumstances or 
sequences, but has recourse to the head and primary cause, thus 
all die because all sinned. Nor should we in this place take the 
word sinned in such a sense as would render it inapplicable to 
infants, but as though he had said they are held in sin and are 
esteemed guilty (rei); for he was able from the explanations given 
in the Epistle to the Hebrews to declare ' how we sinned in Adam,' 
for there we read that Levi paid tithes in Abraham. By the same 
reason it may be here understood that we were contaminated in 
the loins in the mass of Adam." (Comment, in Eom. v., and re- 
peated in Comment, on 1 Cor. xv. 22.) 

21. BuLLIXGER. 

" Sin is called original, or the sin of our birth, because it comes 
from our first origin, or is derived from the first parent upon all 
by propagation or traduction. It derives its origin from the first 
formed man, and hence it is termed the hereditary depravity and 
corruption of our nature. Moreover, this evil flowed from our 
first parents to all their posterity." {Decad. III., Serm. 10.) 

22. Fayers, of Geneva. 

" We believe that the sin of Adam, whilst it was the act of an 
individual, was common to the whole species, inasmuch as Adam 
was not a private person, but was constituted by God the fountain 
of the whole race. For the human race, lying hid in the loins of 
Adam, was adorned by God with original righteousness and grace, 
and by the sin of Adam was despoiled of both ; for as a murder 
perpetrated by the hand is not imputed to the hand only, but to 
the whole body, so this sin was imputed, not to Adam alone, who 
was but a member of the body of men, but to the whole race of 
men ; therefore, it is not of another's sin that we are reckoned 
guilty, but of our own," etc. (Euchirid. Theol. Disp. 37.) 

23. Francis Junius, of Leyden. 

" In the first Adam the whole species was, by God, naturally de- 
posited; in whom all sinned, and became guilty, and the children of 
wrath, and of an eternal malediction." (De Peccato Orig., Thes. 4.) 



138 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



"They who pronounce that sin to be simply involuntary are 
very much deceived, since the same thing may be said to be volun- 
tary and involuntary in different respects, whether you respect its 
generation or its constitution ; for the vjhole race was voluntary in 
sinning in Adam (although in respect to its particular origin it 
was to us involuntary), in whom we have a common origin; and 
as from the fault of our nature it is voluntary, though not by a 
particular act of the will of each individual." (Ibid., Thes. 8.) 

" Hence it comes to pass (namely, by the transgression of Adam) 
that all of us who are born bear the stigma or brand of our rebel- 
lion, so that before we enjoy the light we partake of the injury of 
our origin ; for, indeed, we all sinned in him in whom we all were 
one man." (Ibid., Thes. 2.) 

24. John Chenet. 

In his Examen of the Principal Articles of Religion, he says: 
"As we are not otherwise reformed and regenerated by the Holy 
Spirit, but as we are pardoned and justified by the gratuitous im- 
putation of the merit of Christ ; so original sin does not consist 
merely in that depravity which is the opposite of that renovation 
which is by the Holy Spirit, but also in the imputation of the sin 
of Adam, which is the opposite to the payment made by Christ, 
and to his perfect obedience for us, even to the death of the cross." 
Again : "Although actually and in very deed we did not eat of the 
forbidden fruit as did Adam, nevertheless we all sinned in Adam 
(Rom. v. 12) ; and as Augustine teaches (Epist. 23, to Boniface), we 
subsequently contracted from him an obligation to punishment, since 
we were one with Adam when he sinned." (Lib. XI., c. 21 and 
28.) 

25. Isaac Junius, of Delft. 

In his Antapol. Posthuma, he says: "In the sum of the matter 
all the Reformed churches agree, and teach with unanimous 
consent, in accordance with, the sacred Scriptures, and the uni- 
versal agreement of antiquity, first, That the sin of Adam was 

NOT A PERSONAL SIN, BUT OF THE WHOLE HUMAN RACE, inasmuch aS 

they were all included in the loins of Adam, and in Adam, the first 
parent of us all and root of the whole human race, they sinned ; 
secondly, [That] there was also transfused a principle contrary to 
original righteousness, contracted from Adam in the first transient 
act of his sin, and propagated by means of generation to all his 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS 



139 



posterity, so that all men by nature are guilty of death, and averse 
from the love which they owe to God and divine things, and 
turned or inclined to evil." (Cap. 7, page 152.) 

26. G. S. Frisius. 

"Nor is it merely the imputation of the sin of another, as if all 
on account of the first sin of their parents only were made obnox- 
ious to death, as if this evil would not have the nature of their 
own proper sin unless their consent was added ; but is the reed sin 
of the whole human race through the fall of Adam., in whom cdl 
have sinned, (Rom. v. 12); and are all by nature under an obliga- 
tion from the just judgment of God to endure the punishment of 
eternal death ?" (De Peccato Originali.) 

27. J. Lorentitjs. 

" The true and genuine exposition of these words (Rom. v. 12,) 
is, that all men sinned in Adam as in their common stalk and mass, 
and so in him and by him. It is cdtog ether a different thing to sin 
in Adam, and to derive sin from him. And tve should carefully 
distinguish the sin which all committed in Adam from original 

SIN, NAMELY, AS THE CAUSE FROM THE EFFECT. For all sinned in 

Adam at the same time that he sinned by eating the forbidden 
fruit, as then naturally existing in his loins. This first sin of 
Adam is the cause of original sin, which is the effect ; therefore it 
is falsely asserted by Cath annus and Pighius that original sin is 
nothing but the first sin." (In Rom. v. 12.) 

28. John Cluto, of Franequer. 

" Concerning all the posterity of Adam we affirm that, as well 
on account of the fall of Adam as by their own proper sin, they 
.are cast into a state of misery ; in this following the Scriptures, 
which teach that the first origin of death was from Adam ; so that, 
in truth, his posterity are reckoned to have sinned in him, and so 
on account of the sin of Adam, which he committed by eating the 
forbidden fruit, not as if their sin vjas altogether another's, but as 
being in some sense their own, they are adjudged to death. (Rom. 
v. 12.)" 

" The meaning of the Scripture is evident, since it pronounces 
that men are considered sinners by the disobedience of Adam ; for 
it clearly teaches that men are so constituted sinners by the sin of 
Adam, that according to the divine ordination sin is imputed to 
Ms posterity, and on this account they are equally reckoned sin- 



140 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



ners as if in their own proper persons they had committed it." 
(Disput. XYL, Theses 14 and 18.) 

While our limits have obliged us to give but a portion of what 
Rivetus has quoted from these eminent divines (to-wit : the pre- 
ceding nine), still we have, as we think our readers themselves will 
admit, presented sufficient to give clearly and comprehensively 
their views, and which it would seem impossible to misunderstand. 
We, moreover, present the passages in the translation made of 
them in 1839 by Dr. Hodge himself, as we have not the work 
of Rivetus now at hand. We cannot pause to expatiate upon their 
testimony, nor, indeed, is it needed. They one and all affirm 
the common standpoint of the Church, that the whole race so sin- 
ned in Adam as to become veritable sinners by participating with 
him in the first sin. On this ground do they explicate the doc- 
trine of original sin, and never in a single instance do they, or 
any representative divine of the Church, even attcmp)t to exj)licate 
it on the ground so unwarrantably assumed by Dr. Hodge, to-wit : 
that Adam's personal transgression was, as a peccatum alienum,. 
forensically imputed to his posterity while in a state of perfect in- 
nocence, in order to constitute them guilty and depraved, and is 
transmitted by this forensic imputation alone. While, on the con- 
trary, these eminent men all, in unison with the entire Calvinistic 
church, affirm that the imputation was that of a common or uni- 
versal sin, and that it is propagated by ordinary generation. . 

29. A. Scultetus, colleague of Pareus at Heidelberg. 

"It is objected," says he (as cited by Rivetus), "But by what 
right do the offspring suffer punishment for the crime of their 
parents? Paul answers that they have all sinned in their first 
parents: Original sin containing, 1, The first transgression; 2, The 
corruption of our parents." 

30. Andreas Essenius, colleague of Hoornbeck. 

In discussing the cavils of the Socinians and Remonstrants of 
his day, he says: "It is objected fourthly, 'we stood not with 
Adam when he sinned; therefore we neither sinned together nor 
consented to that sin,' etc. I answer that we did virtually stand 
in Adam, and were federally reckoned and included in him; 
wherefore that sin is not foreign from us ; illud peccatum non est 
a nobis alienum;" 1 that is, it is not as Dr. Hodge styles it, a pec- 
catum alienum. 

1 Compend. Theol. Dog., cap. 10, Thesis. 28. (Utrecht, 1682.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



141 



31. Marck, in his Medulla, when replying to the Pelagian ob- 
jection that " the act of the Adamic sin was that of a single per- 
son, and is long since past," says: " I rej)ly that the offence was 
common, and that hence the guilt flowing from it remains." (Cap. 
15, § 32.) 

32. So uniform and invariable is the testimony of the Church, 
that even De Moor, (who carried the federal relation to its farthest 
admissible extent as asserted in the Helvetian consensus,) in stat- 
ing the doctrine of original sin, ventures not to depart from the 
great explanatory principle aforesaid, and which Dr. Hodge has 
so unceremoniously rejected. For example, in his great and in- 
valuable work on Marck's Medulla, and in referring to the 12th 
question of the Heidelberg Catechism, he says: "Xisi Adamus 
consideretur ut caput representativum totius generis humani, in 
quo nos cuncti dono Rectitudinis ornati peccavimus, a quibus 
proin propter Peatum in Adamo contractum, non minus quam a 
primo illo parente, judicaliter per modum Poena? dona ilia sunt 
ablata, quae nos ipsi peccantes in Adamo sponte dilapidamus ? 
atque hie mihi creditur nativus hujus Pesponsi sensus." 1 In re- 
plying also to the objection that the act of Adam pertained to 
Mrnself alone, he says : " The crime, nevertheless, is common." 
And in answering an exception to this, he says further : " "We all 
having been made guilty in Adam when existing in his loins, have 
-also sinned in him." iP. 285.) And then, on the same page, 
while stating the federal relation in the strongest manner, he care- 
fully avoids the destructive and fatal error of Dr. Hodge, and so 
presents that relation as to retain the aforesaid explanatory prin- 
ciple — the subjective ill-desert of the posterity, which, says he, is 
deservedly the grounds of their punishment for the sin of our 
first parents. Por example: "Fcedus illud neglecto officio nostro 
in capite nos representante, violavhnus, hinc oh culpam in. Adamo 
Qommissam. et nobis imputatam ^ierito omxes puximus." 

But we must conclude this part of our catalogue of witnesses, 
though it were easy to extend it by the addition of a multitude of 
citations no less pertinent and conclusive as to the recognized doc- 
t'rine of the Church that the first sin wets common, and therefore 
imputed, and not made common by being imputed, as Dr. Hodge's 

1 See Commentarius Perpetuus in Johanni Markii, Compendium Theol. 
Christiance. Tom. III., p. 273. (Leyden, 1765-) 



142 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin requires. And we 
shall now proceed to hear the divines of the Lutheran communion , 
since they too, and with equal absence of all rational ground to 
sustain the allegation, are claimed by Dr. Hodge as favoring his 
theory. 

B. Testimony of the Lutheran Divines. 
1. We begin with Martin Luther. 

As this truly great and gifted man died in the year 1516, while 
the Council of Trent was engaged in deliberating on the doctrine 
of original sin, and as the work we shall cite was published in 
1544, his statements as presented therein can have no reference to 
the decisions of the Council on that subject, as the remarks and 
statements of Calvin, Melancthon, Bucer, and other divines sub- 
sequently had. The following is from his "Commentary on 
Genesis." 1 He says: "When the sophists discourse on original 
sin they speak only of misery and foul lust or concupiscence. But 
original sin is, in truth, the total fall of human nature, because the 
understanding has become darkened, so that we can no longer 
know God and His will, nor regard His works. Then, because 
the will is dreadfully depraved, so that we cannot trust the mercy 
of God, but having neglected the word and the will of God, we 
follow concupiscence and the lusts of the flesh. Then, further, 
because the conscience is no longer at rest, but whenever it thinks 
upon the judgment of God it despairs, and follows after and seeks 
unlawful reliefs and remedies. These sins are so deeply impressed 
upon nature that in this life they cannot be wholly eradicated; 
and yet the miserable sophists say not a word in regard to them. 
As is the nature of correlates, original sin evinces, after this 
manner, what was original righteousness from its contrary, — even 
that it is the loss or privation of original righteousness, as blind- 
ness is the privation of sight. 

"This appears far more extensively than the monks imagine, 
who understand original righteousness only of chastity. But let 
the soul be carefully considered; afterwards the body also, so be- 
fouled with lust. But it is the soul especially, because it has lost 
the knowledge of God ; because we do not always and everywhere 
give Him thanks; because we do not delight in His works and 
1 On chapter ii. 17, pp. 32, 33, (published at Wittenberg, 1544.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 143 

deeds; because we do not trust Him; because when He visits us 
with merited chastisements we begin to hate Him and blaspheme ; 
because when we have transactions with a neighbor we consult our 
cupidity, and are rapacious, dishonest, adulterers, murderers, cruel, 
inhumane, unmerciful, and the like. The fury of lust is, indeed, 
a particular part of original sin. But greater are these vices of 
the soul, — incredulity, ignorance of God, desperation, hatred, 
blasphemy. Adam, in the state of innocency, knew nothing of 
these spiritual calamities. 

" Then there are to be enumerated the punishments of original 
sin. For original sin rightly is called whatever is lost of these 
conditions which Adam possessed while as yet in a state of in- 
tegrity ; because in penetration he was so sagacious that he im- 
mediately knew Eve to be of his flesh, and he possessed an exact 
knowledge of all creatures, because he was also just, upright, ex- 
celling in intellect, unbiassed in will, and notwithstanding, im- 
perfect ; for after that animal life, perfection should be delayed 
for the spiritual." 

The doctrine thus inculcated is, that the first sin is truly the sin 
of the race ; and that the evils resulting from it are consequently 
penal,' and descend to us through our first parents by propagation. 

Previous to this presentation of the Augustinian doctrine Luther 
had, on the preceding page, adverted to certain grievous errors 
that were in his day inculcated concerning it. Erasmus and 
Pighius had been reviving the Pelagian views of the early Armiu- 
ians, and of certain of the Scholastics, respecting the imputation 
of a peccatum alienum ; and Luther perceiving at once how fatal 
in its effects must prove to be the admission of this principle into 
the Protestant doctrine, and anticipating from its reception therein 
all those ruinous consequences which its subsequent introduction 
into Poland and Transylvania developed in the churches, gives the 
following admonition respecting it. and in which, as our readers 
may perceive, he describes and refutes the very theory which Dr. 
Hodge has been inculcating as Calvinistic truth. He says: "And it 
seems that in our own day also, there are those who are deceived 
by this argument ; for they so speak of original sin (i. e., in- 
herent corruption) as if it were no fault of ours^ hut only a pun- 
ishment (ac si non culpa sed tantum poena) ; as Erasmus some- 
where argues in express terms, £ that original sin is a punishment 



144 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



inflicted on our first parents, which we their posterity are compelled 
to suffer on account of another 's crime, without any demerit of our 
own, (propter aliemira culpam, sine nostro merito,) as an illegiti- 
mate child is obliged to endure the shame arising not from his 
own fault, but from that of his mother; for how could he have 
sinned who as yet did not exist V These things may be flatter- 
ing TO REASON," RUT THEY ARE FULL OF IMPIETY AND BLASPHEMY ! 

(Ablandiuntur hsec rationi, sed sunt plena jmpietatis et blas- 
phemies." {Pag. 31).) 
2. Melancthon. 

In his Hypotyposis Theological, or Loci Communes, (as the work 
is ordinarily named,) he says : " Peccatum originate est nativa pro- 
pensio et quidam genialis impetus et energia, quae ad peccandum 
trahimur, propagata ah Adeem hi omnem posteritatem. Sicut in 
igni est genuina vis, qua sursum fertur, sicut in Magnete est 
genuina vis, qua ad se ferrum trahit; ita est in homine nativa vis 
ad peccandum" 1 

" Quod si natura sumns filii irse, certe nascemur filii irse. Quid 
enim ibi (Eph. ii. 3) aliud agit Paulus, quam omnes vires nostras 
peccato obnoxias nasci, nihil ullo tempore in ullis hominum viribus 
boni esse. Capite quinto ad Pomanos instituit disputationem de 
peccato, gratia, et lege, ubi peccatum docet propagatum in omnes 
homines. Quomodo vero propagatum est unius peccatum, si non 
ab uno omnes nascuntur peccatores? Neque vero negari potest, 
quin de originali peccato eo loco Paulus disserat. i^am, si de suo 
cuj usque peccato loqueretur, non posset dicere, unius delicto mul- 

tos mortuos esse Et cum non nisi per peccatu?n mors ir- 

rumpat ; necesse est pueros peccati reos esse, peccaiumque habere, 
at, quod? certe originate." (Pp. 20, 21, § III.) 

Again, "Proinde cum Sophistse docent, peccatum originale esse, 
excidisse favore Dei et carere originali justitia, debebant adder e, 
quod, cum absit a nobis Dei Spiritus et benedictio, maledicti simus, 
cum lux absit esse in nobis nihil nisi tenebras, ccecitatem et erro- 
rem ; cum absit Veritas, nihil in nobis esse nisi mendacium,; cum 
absit vita, nihil esse in nobis nisi peccatuin et mortemP (Pp. 29, 
SO.) 

These sophists maintained, that as the posterity of Adam did not 
participate in his sin, their abandonment by God on account of the 
1 Loc. Com. De Peccato. § 1, p. 19. (Lipsiaj, 1821.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



145 



personal sin of Adam, left them merely in that natural state or 
condition in which Adam was anterior to the covenant transaction 
referred to in Genesis ii. IT. And in strictness of terms this (un- 
tenable as it is in the light of the Scriptures) is the position which 
the theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, if pressed, is neces- 
sitated to assume. And hence, as before remarked, Dr. Hodge 
denounces and attempts to ridicule the idea that the posterity could 
have been in a state of apostasy anterior to the imputation to them 
of Adam's personal sin. Their apostasy, says he, was the conse- 
quence, and not the ground, of their condemnation. They were 
deprived of God's favor as the penal consequence of the one sin 
of the one man, etc. 1 And yet he claims that the doctrine of 
original sin, as he teaches it, " attributes no efficiency to God in the 
production of evil." 2 This would be true provided the doctrine he 
teaches was the Church doctrine, which affirms that God abandons 
or punishes the race for its complicity with Adam in the first sin. 
But it is not true, and never can be true, on the principles incul- 
cated by Dr. Hodge, which represent God as penally inflicting on 
the posterity moral corruption simply on account of a peccatum 
alienum — a sin in whose perpetration they were in no way or man- 
ner implicated. The foregoing statement of Melancthon, there- 
fore, makes it transparently clear, that for God to treat the posterity 
thus would be equivalent to constituting them morally depraved 
and corrupt, (because, if for a foreign sin He deprives them of His 
Spirit, His blessing, His truth, etc., the opposite condition must 
necessarily supervene in the soul) ; and so He would efficiently be- 
come the author of t*heir evil nature — a result or consequence 
which in the circumstances folly alone could disclaim. 
3. The Form of Concord. 

" In respect to our corruption and the fall of our first parents, 
.... we teach that this hereditary evil is the fault or guilt (culpa 
seu reatus) by which it has come to pass, that on account of the 
disobedience of Adam <md Eve we became hateful before God (in 
odio apud Deum), and by nature the children of wrath." " The 
false opinions of the Pelagians are repudiated, that original sin is 
only guilt or hlame, which has heen contracted from another's 
transgression (ex aliena transgressione) without any corruption of 

1 See Princeton Review for April and October, 1860, especially pages 356, 
357, &c. 2 See his Theology, Yol. II., p. 253. 

10 



146 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



our nature." 1 Here is a full and entire repudiation of Dr. Hodge's 
notion that the posterity has no corruption of nature anterior to 
the imputation to them of Adam's personal sin. 
4. J. A. Quenstedt, 1617-1688. 

This great master spirit and representative divine of the Luth- 
eran communion still retains unimpaired all his influence and 
honors, and the labors of no subsequent divine have in any degree 
superseded his great work, Theologia Didactico-Polemica, seu Sys- 
tema Theologice. He everywhere recognizes and affirms the doc- 
trine that our participation in the evils of the fall is conditioned 
by our participation in the guilt or criminality of the fall. For 
example, " Voluntas Adami censebatur nostra ; nam primus homo 
omnium posterorum voluntates in sua quasi voluntate locatas habe- 
rit, — tenemus, 1, pa?"ticipatione culpas actualis ; in Adamo namque 
omnes peccavimus ; 2, imputatione reatus legalis, etc. Non posset 
in nos propagari reatus, nisi prascessisit imputatis actus quippe qui 
illius fundamentum est." 2 

In the same Qucestio he thus lays down and treats upon the fol- 
lowing thesis : " It was not alone of the good pleasure of the 
Divine Being, nor of' His absolute rule, (absoluti dominii) that the 
sin which Adam, as the root and stem of the whole human race, 
committed was imputed to us, and propagated to us as to its guilt, 
but of the most perfect justice and equity (sed summse justitiae et 
sequitatis). And so, in Adam as in a common trunk (stipite), we 
have all sinned, and that first fall is ours, not indeed by propaga- 
tion, but by imputation, not actualiter, but originaliter. 

"The first Adarnic sin is imputed to us immediately, so far as 
we yet stood in Adam. But the sin of Adam is imputed to us 
mediately ; that is to say, inherent, original sin intervening (medi- 
ante peccato originali inhaerente), so far as we are regarded in our 
own persons and individually. For no one is held as a sinner be- 
fore God ; to no one is that first sin imputed, unless to him who, 
being contaminated with original sin, descends from Adam him- 
self P Thus the notion of constituting the posterity guilty by a 
peccatum alienum is every where repudiated by the Lutheran (as 
by the Calvinistic) divines, and refuted as a Socinian and Pelagian 
cavil against the truth. 

1 Article I., cited in Bretsehneider's Dogmatik, Vol. II., p. 35. 

2 Cap. II., De Peccato, Sect. II., Qua3st. 7. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



147 



5. J. M. Gerhard is likewise one of the choice spirits, and one 
of the most deservedly eminent theologians of the Lutheran church, 
and his Loci Theologici are still regarded as high authority. 

In Locus IV., § 331„ ne sa J s ? "The Papists contend that origi- 
nal sin is only the privation of the supernatural gift of original 
righteousness, and that in the meantime the nature of man con- 
tinues to be such as it was when first created. We, on the con- 
trary, declare that through original sin not only was the concreated 
righteousness lost, but that the nature of man itself was corrupted 
in ways astonishing and sad to comternplate (miris ac miseris mo- 
dis). And this corruption of nature, which evinces itself in all 
men by a bias or inclination to evil, we call a positive quality 
(which the Papists will not admit — see Bellarmin De Amiss. Grat. 
et Statu Peccati, lib. Y., cap. 15), not as though any power of act- 
ing is, in. itself, or by itself, sin; but because this power of acting 
is in man prone and ready only to sin." 

Again : " That sin (of Adam) is not in all respects alien from 
us, because Adam sinned not as a private individual, but as the 

. head of the whole human race ; and as human nature being com- 
municated through him becomes their own to every person begot- 
ten of him, so also is the corruption of nature communicated through 

propagation ; and therefore as it is said that the tribe of Levi, be- 
ing contained in the loins of Abraham, offered tithes to Melchise- 
dek, (Heb. vii. 9,) so also we who were concealed in the loins of 
sinning Adam were not only corrupted in and with him, but also 
became guilty of the displeasure of God ; sed et rei irce Dei facti 
sumusP 

6. J. G. Baier. 

We now call attention to the testimony of this remarkably acute 
and accurate theologian, who still stands in the front of the Lu- 
theran divines. In his chapter on original sin 1 he lays down the 
proposition : " Dari peccatum originis etsi Patio ex suis principiis 
certe ac distincte agnoscere non possit, in Scriptura tamen mani- 
festissime indicatur." And then, after briefly illustrating the 
former part of it, he thus speaks in reference to the latter : " See 
especially Romans v. 12, where it is said that therefore death came 
upon all men, because in one man, Adam, all sinned, or are con- 

1 We quote his Theol. Positivce, Parte II., capife II., De Peccato Originis 
(editio tertia). (Tena?, 16.94.) 



148 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

stituted sinners. For although the word dfiaprdveiv may otherwise 
denote the act of sinning, still it is admitted that in this place it is 
to be understood, even of those who, by reason of their immature 
age and the defect of the use of reason, could in no way thus sin, 
yea, who did not exist when man first fell. Whence, to say that 
all sinned in Adam is not the same as to say that all imitated the 
sin of Adam by similar acts." Then, after quoting verse 14, and 
Eph. ii. 3, and expatiating thereon, he adds: "For to be a son of 
wrath is the same as to be obnoxious to the Divine anger, and 
worthy of punishment by God, in vindication of His law, inflicted 
on account of the violation of the law. And so no one can be a 
child of wrath by nature, unless by nature, or through the corrup- 
tion of nature, he is polluted with sin. ,J (§ 1.) Then, in Section 
II., he says : " But original sin imports in part the privation of 
original righteousness, and in part the inclination of our whole 
nature to evil." Then, in Section VII., " The remote efficient 
cause of original sin is the devil; the near is our first parents, Eve, 
and especially Adam." 

Baier then, in a note to Section XL, says: "See Rom. v. 12, 
where it is especially taught that all men have sinned by a sin 
"by which all are polluted (quo omnes polluuntur), that death has 
passed to all men, even to those who have not sinned after the 
similitude of Adam's transgression; or who have not by a like pre- 
varication imitated the actual and voluntary sin of Adam, but 
nevertheless were therefore made obnoxious to death because they 
had sinned in Adam, and consequently derived sin from him to 
themselves." (P. 513.) Then, in Section XV., he thus formally 
delineates the doctrine : " Original sin may be described as the 
want of original righteousness propagated to all men through the 
fall, by carnal generation, deeply corrupting the nature of man 
itself and all the faculties of the soul, rendering them inapt to the 
pursuit of spiritual good, prone to evil, and subjecting mankind to 
the Divine anger and eternal death, unless saved therefrom by the 
remission of sin on account of the merit of Christ apprehended by 
faith." (P. 526.) 

7. J. F. Budd^us. 

In his Theology 1 he says: "Hence Augustine rightly says: 
c We all were potentially (virtute) included in Adam, and all were 
1 Instit. Theol. Dogmat., lib. III., p. 531, ad § 16. (Leipsic, 1724.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



149 



one in him.' (De Peccat. Merit., lib. L, cap. 10.) And again : ' In 
the one man all men are understood to have sinned originally.' 
(Lib. VL, Contra Julian, cap. 2.) And these indeed evince that 
Adam should be altogether regarded as a natural and seminal 
head in this covenant ; which is denied in vain, therefore, by cer- 
tain doctors of the Reformed church, who contend that Adam 
should be considered as a federal head only ; and from thence 
they further conclude that original sin is no otherwise propagated 
to the posterity of Adam than as God imputes the sin of Adam as 
a federal head to all his posterity. As to such a notion every one 
may perceive how harsh it is. Yet again, it is frequently inquired, 
whether he should be considered wholly as a federal head. This 
likewise, however, many doctors of the Reformed church em- 
phatically deny, and contend, moreover, for that propagation of 
original sin which proceeds only from natural generation, not ad- 
mitting the imputation of the Adamic. 1 ' 

In order to sustain this latter representation, Buddseus refers to 
Whitby (a strange reference) and his tractate against the Church 
doctrine of imputation ; while Witsius is cited as sustaining the 
former; i. e., in regard to the more rigid divines of the Reformed 
Church. But Witsius, and the divines thus generally referred to, 
plainly and clearly assert the subjective guilt of the whole race in 
the fall; and that the first sin was not imputed to posterity sim- 
ply as the sin of another, but as their own likewise. 1 Had Bud- 
dfeus referred to Szydlovius, or Crellius, Slitchingius, etc., the 
reference would have been in point, so far as doctrine is concerned, 
though, as to ecclesiastical position, as wide of the mark (except in 
the case of Szydlovius) as his previous reference to Whitby. 

Again : " But although original sin may be such that it cannot 
be perpetrated by the posterity of Adam ; yet in itself, whilst it 
cleaves to every man, it is rightly referred to him as the cause, 
and therefore, and thus far, it is rightly ascribed to him. Al- 
though, therefore, it may be a calamity, because they had been 
brought into this condition, aside from their own voluntary agency, 
by being born ; nevertheless the guilt of blame and of punishment 
cannot be taken away from sin on that account (because it is 
rightly imputed to any one, whether on the ground of perpetration 
or inhaesion), for divine justice cannot permit it. And hence also 

1 See (Econ. Foederis, lib. I. cap. 8, § 30, usque ad § 35. 



150 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

it appears, if any one is punished on account of original sin, that 
he is not punished so much on account of the sin of another as on 
account of his own. Yet, at the same time, let it be understood, 
that no injury is done to any if the sin of Adam should be impu- 
ted to them And truly, that the k<p w is to be re- 
ferred to the sin of Adam, appears from the fact that likewise the 
apostle could not have said that, by one man, sin, and at the same 
time death, entered into the world. If all, therefore, have si?ined 
in the one man, the sin of this one man is rightly imputed to 
all? 1 

8. J. G. Walch, of Jena. 

In his Einleit in die Dogmatik, cap. XI., § 13, he says: " Inas- 
much as the fall of our first parents occurred with their knowledge 
and consent, so it was justly imputed to them; yet not to them 
alone, but to cdl their posterity. That such imputation takes place 
justly, and that God regards all the posterity of Adam as having 
sinned at the same time with him (Zugleich gesundiget), appears 
from this that all are by nature children of wrath, (Eph. ii. 3,) 
and are subjected to death as the wages of sin, (Rom. vi. 23, and 

v. 12.) The ground of this imputation is twofold, and 

lies, 1st, in this, That Adam sinned not as a natural head only, 
but as a moral head ; and, consequently, his posterity are regarded 
as having taken part in his transgression, (Rom. v. 12.) 2d, It is 
based, too, on this : That we all are conceived and born in sin, and, 
consequently, have within us something deserving of punishment, 
so that the infliction which mast take effect according to divine 
justice necessarily infers the imputation" 

9. C. E. Weissman. 

In his Instit. Theol., loco YIL, he says: "The apostle teaches 
that there is (i. e., between Adam and his posterity) a mutual par- 
ticipation of the effect of death, sin and judgment; but that it 
takes place precisely on account of a certain federal connection 
and by the way of immediate and previous imputation ; and that 
the act of the Adamic sin is in this mode imputed to posterity for 
condemnation — this he does not say, and hence care should be 
taken lest we obtrude a meaning upon his words which he has not 
conveyed," (page 389.) 

Again: ."12. We have said decidedly, also, that in a certain 

1 See lib. III., cap. II., § 24, page 588. 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



151 



sense the first sin was imputed to the whole human race, but by 
imputation rather mediate than immediate. We do not allege 
that the sin or moral corruption was propagated to the seed of 
Adam only by way of physical and natural generation, but we 
acknowledge, likewise, that this sin, existing by nature in all men, 
as in the children of sinners, brings them under the judgment of 
God, and excludes them from intercourse with God and His grace 
while they remain such." (P. 4:21.) 

" 14. We say still further, that that which we call original sin is 
not a mere calamity or infirmity, like a physical or civil disability ; 
for example, as in the case of hereditary diseases, or as in the for- 
feiture of the honors and dignities of parents (when convicted for 
a civil offence) by their children ; but that it is in verity such a 
state or condition as is judicially obnoxious to the Divine dis- 
pleasure, and which subjects man to spiritual evil, although he has 
not contracted it by his own sins. This part of the proposition 
is a rock of offence, and an especial stumbling-block to those who 
violently assail the doctrine of original sin in the common theology. 
Or should they admit somewhat of this guilt (for at times the 
manifest truth extorts the like from them), they, nevertheless, 
quickly close their ears, so soon as they hear that this moral vice 
of man is to be called sin, obnoxious to the divine displeasure, and 
to spiritual privations. Cnrcellseiis says : £ In brief, there is no- 
thing in us when we are born which can be truly and properly 
named sin, for which God is displeased and purposes to inflict any 
degree of punishment. But we establish our proposition by these 
and other arguments: (1.) Because the condition is such that no 
one who continues therein can enter into the kingdom of God. 
(2.) Because all are by nature the children of wrath 

. . ( 5.) Because the root of all sins cannot itself be innocent 
before God/' (Pp. 123, 121.) 

The endeavor of this learned and excellent man (as also of Bud- 
daeus, above cited) to place the natural relation of Adam before 
the moral in regard to the imputation of the first sin to his pos- 
terity, is a plain and unauthorized departure from the common 
faith ; though by no means so serious and fatal in its effects upon 
the evangelical system as it would be to place (as Dr. Hodge and 
Crellius and Catharinus have done | the moral relation before the 
natural in explicating this great doctrine, and so to constitute the 



152 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



merely personal sin of Adam the sole ground of condemnation 
and consequent corruption of the race, all of which will be made 
fully apparent in the sequel. The Angustinian theology has 
always regarded the imputation of the first sin as based simulta- 
neously and equally upon each relation ; and has recognized as the 
ground of it not only the transgression of Adam, but our moral par- 
ticipation with him in his fatal apostasy. 

10. J. J. Rambach. 

In his Kirchen-Historie des Alien Testaments (a work of great 
merit) he says : " The remote effect of the first sin is the introduc- 
tion of sin and death in the world. Until then sin existed only 
with the fallen angels. But as Adam and Eve procreated offspring, 
so sin came also into the world; and they could communicate and 
impart to their children no other nature (keine andere menschliche 
natur) than that which is guilty and corrupt. We may learn from 
this that Adam sinned not only as an individual, but as the father 
of the human race. (Isa. xliii. 27 : Thy first father hath sinned.) 
Had he sinned only as an individual, his guilt would have been 
only personal ; i. e., it would have remained in his own person. 
But inasmuch as he sinned as the father of mankind, so his guilt 
was hereditary, in which it was necessary that all should partici- 
pate to whom he has imparted his fallen nature. And as in this 
way sin entered into the world, so death, as the wages of sin, fol- 
lowed in its wake ; so that all the sons of Adam are guilty and 
sinners by nature, and likewise mortal." 1 

The prayer at the close of his first Meditation on the sufferings 
of our blessed Lord commences thus: "O faithful Saviour! let 
the highest praise be thine for that unspeakable love which in- 
duced thee in thy high and adorable person to pursue that painful 
course on which our redemption depends, and to retire into a 
garden, there to expiate the sins which toe in a garden had com- 
mitted by our first father Adam." 2 

11. J. A. Ernesti. 

"The sin of Adam descends to all his posterity, partly through 
propagation, partly through the imputation of the first sin; which 
is clearly apparent from Romans v. 12, 14, 15, 19. The ground of 
the first is the natural relation of Adam as their original parent; 

1 See Tom. I. pp. 73, 74. (Frankfort and Leipsic, 1737.) 

2 Betrachtungen uber das ganza Leiden Christi. (Halle, 1757.) 



EXPOSITORY STATEMENTS. 



153 



but of the second, is the relation of all mankind to Adam as their 
representative." 1 

12. J. A. H. TlTTMAX. 

We conclude the catalogue of these citations with the following 
statement from this profound and learned exegete, whom no man 
who has a proper respect for his own reputation will accuse of ut- 
tering Pantheistic nonsense. 

He says: "Let us now consider, therefore, the case of man's 
being made sinners. JVo o?ie, I apprehend, can be so vMnting in 
proper regard to divine justice and holiness as to suppose that all 
men are made sinners merely by the offence of Adam , and without 
any blame of their own ; i. e., no one can naturally look upon all men 
as sinners in the judgment of God merely because of Adam's of- 
fence, or as rendered miserable not on account of their own sin, but 
because Adam once sinned." It is obvious from this that Tittman 
had not the slightest conception that the doctrine of the gratuitous 
imputation of sin had ever been taught in the Lutheran Church ,* 
and yet Dr. Hodge peremptorily claims that communion in sup- 
port of his theory ! 

Tittman continues as follows: "As to the distinction made by 
former theologians between the imputation of guilt and punish- 
ment, I fear this cannot remove the objections which lie against 
imputation of any kind ; for what difference can there be between 
being punished as if a man were criminal, and being regarded as 
in fact a criminal ? But Paul has removed all ground of doubt as to 
the passage before us by what he says in verse 12. After declaring 
that death comes upon all from the time that Adam sinned, lest any 
one should doubt for what reason it came upon all, he immediately 
adds, 'Because all have sinned? 

" It follows from this that throughout the whole passage man's 
owx culpability is not to be excluded ; ice are punished for our 
ovm sins. For although by the offence of Adam death came into 
the world, yet this death is not of the nature of punishment for 
individual offences. Upon all such as receive the pardon of their 
offences, and are by faith made partakers of a new spirit, death 
does not come as a punishment, although it still reigns, as it did 
over those 'who did not sin after the similitude of Adam's trans- 
gression.' 

1 Cited in Baumgarten's Streitig., Tom. II., p. 430. (Halle, 1763.) 



154 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



a In view of all this we may now say that the meaning of Paul, 
when he declares that all men are made sinners by the disobedience 
of one, must be quite plain ; for the word sinners (dpaproXo)) can- 
not m.ean merely such as are exposed to sin, or inclined to sin by a 
kind of necessity, or by nature. It denotes such as are polluted in 
their sinful habits and connections ; miserable on account of the 
sins they have committed, and therefore obnoxious, i. e., exposed 
to divine punishment ; dead in trespasses ; by nature children of 
wrath. Such all have become through the disobedience of one 
man (k<p w -dvre? ij/j.aprov), because all men have sinned." 1 

In his admission here of the force of the objections " to impu- 
tation of any kind," Tittman refers to those views of imputation 
alluded to by him in the concluding part of the same sentence, 
i. e., that there can be no imputation to us of that which is really 
ours. He himself throughout these extracts contends for the doc- 
trine substantially as entertained by the leading divines of his 
church, for he affirms^/W we all are constituted veritable sinners, 
because we all sinned in Adam, and are all made sinners (dpap-oXoi) 
through the disobedience of the one. 

Concluding Remarks. 

Such, then, is the testimony of the Reformed and Lutheran com- 
munions in respect to this great fundamental truth in the theology 
of the Reformation, — a truth which, though formulated in the days 
of Augustine, had been recognized in its controlling power by the 
family of Christ ever since their reception of the inspired utter- 
ances of Paul. And thus do her members with one voice utterly 
repudiate the theory which Dr. Hodge would claim to be the very 
doctrine which they have taught. His theory and exegesis, that 
is, as dogmatically presented and insisted on by himself, are no- 
where at any time found asserted by any representative divine of 
either communion; nor can he furnish a solitary reference to 
any such divine who has inculcated them. Why, then, are our 
walls, at his injunction, to be taken down, in order to admit this 
wooden horse, with all its concealed forces of desolation and de- 
struction, while those who would raise the voice of warning are 

1 See Tract on the Obedience of Christ, translated from the Latin by Prof. 
Stuart, and published in the American Biblical Repository for July, 1836. 



CONCLUDING- REMARKS 



155 



made offenders, and are hooted down and strangled by the ser- 
pent and his brood ! 

Dr. Julius Muller, whose learning and candor none will ques- 
tion, presents the following statement of the doctrine as originally 
received and always taught by the Protestant communions ; and we 
request our readers to compare his delineation with the statement 
so constantly presented in the foregoing catalogues of citations. 
He says: "This, therefore, is the point at which all the threads of 
the orthodox doctrine of hereditary sin meet, in which it must be 
dogmatically justified, if it is at all capable of such justification. 
It first of all appears as something quite incredible that in the fall 
of Adam all his natural posterity are supposed to have some par- 
ticipation. If now it may he shown that this is only the paradox 
zchich every deeper connexion of things has for ordinary thinking, 
then all further difficulties of the dogma become involved of them- 
selves. 

" We must therefore regard it as a laudable testimony for the 
.acuteness and systematic thoroughness of our older theologians 
that they cognize this point in its great significance, without, on 
the other hand, concealing from themselves that it can indeed only 
have this significance as an explanatory principle of the real de- 
terminations which, from the fall of our first parents, diffuse 
themselves over the entire race of their posterity. According to 
the modus docendi, prevalent in the old Protestant dogmatic, the 
•connection of our culpability with the fall of our first parents is a 
double one, mediate and immediate. The corruption of human na- 
ture which has arisen m conseouence of this fall, which indeed, at 
the time of their fall only has real existence in them, they trans- 
mit by generation to their children, and these again to their de- 
scendants : so that all mankind, from the commencement of their 
existence, bear in them a constitutional character which object- 
ively strives against the law of God (Mediaia peccati Adamatici 
imputatio.) Put also immediately have all the descendants of 
Adam with him made themselves guilty in his fall. They are 
regarded by God as such ; avIio have committed the very act by 
-which Adam fell (immediata peccati Adamatici imputatio) ; by 
the Peformed theologians also denominated imputatio antecedent, 
in distinction from the imputatio mediata as consequens ; but they 
are therefore regarded as such because they have ideally taken 



156 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



part iii that act. This immediate imputation of the fall has 
its real basis in the propagation of the natural corruption. But 
Quenstedt, on the other hand, definitely recognizes that the par- 
ticipation in the punishment of the fall, to which the loss of the 
divine image and the dominion of evil lust most essentially be- 
long, is conditioned by participation in the guilt of the fall." 1 

The doctrine of the Church, therefore, beyond all question is, 
that the guilt of the first sin is charged upon the posterity of Adam 
because they are veritably guilty of having participated in that sin. 
It is charged upon them, not by a legal fiction forensically con- 
stituting it theirs, but divine justice lays it to their charge because 
it is theirs. The charge is not fictitious, or the utterance merely 
of a determination to treat them as sinners, and as if they were 
actually guilty, but a sentence pronounced in accordance with actu- 
ally existing facts. They are guilty, and therefore are condemned. 
They are sinners, corrupted and polluted, and therefore are treated 
accordingly. The imputation, or condemnatory sentence, does in 
no sense of the word produce the guilt, or is in any sense of the 
word the cause of it. Such is the invariable teaching of the 
Church of God, and thus impressively and thoroughly does she 
disclaim and repudiate that whole theory and exegesis which Dr. 
Hodge, to the impending subversion of our Church theology, has 
been during many years inculcating upon her rising ministry as 
the doctrine of the Church and of the word of God. 

We ought, perhaps, out of regard to the patience of our readers 
here conclude Part II. of this discussion. But we feel that it can 
hardly be regarded as complete without a fuller elucidation than 
we have yet been able to give of a single point, which through Dr. 
Hodge's treatment of it has become considerably mystified, and 
we therefore devote to its consideration the following section. 

§ 14. Adam's Personal Sin and the First Sin. 
The distinction clearly and constantly observable in the theology 
of the Reformation touching the proposition announced in the 
caption of this section is repeatedly glanced at in our previous 

1 The Christian Doctrine of Sin, Vol. II., pp. 364, 365. We have not ac- 
cess to the original of this masterly treatise, and have quoted from the transla- 
tion (which, though greatly labored, seems to he quite inadequate), by the- 
Rev. William Pulsford. 



adam's sin and the first star. 



157 



citations, arid by our theologians it has never been considered a 
very scholarly procedure (in treating the doctrine before us) to 
xepresent the expressions " Adam's sin " and " the first sin " as 
meaning nothing more than the mere peccatum alienum, or per- 
sonal sin of Adam. The Pelagians and early Arminians, and sub- 
sequently several of the scholastics, and still later Pighius and 
Catharinus, with those of the Socinian and Remonstrant schools, 
had all suffered shipwreck in the attempt to identify the two, and 
yet there is no point in the whole discussion on which Dr. Hodge 
has more imperiously and proscriptively dogmatized than on this. 
Xor is it, perhaps, after all very surprising ; for, having gratuitously 
accepted his theory and exegesis as Calvinistic, nothing is more 
certain than the fact, that should he fail to establish this assumed 
identity, his whole apparatus goes overboard — tackle, anchors, 
compass, and all — and sinks hopeless below all fathomable sound- 
ings. Hence all the resources of which he can avail himself have 
been again and again laid under oppressive contribution in order 
to bear against the very supposition that in the Augustinian the- 
ology the first sin, or Adam's sin, can possibly mean anything other 
than Adam's personal sin, — a peccatum alienum to the race, — and 
that consequently in no intelligible, or even conceivable, sense can 
the race be said to have sinned in the first fall, except putatively. 
For example, he says : " The only possible way in which all men 
can be said to have sinned in Adam is putatively." 1 " There are 
penal evils which come upon men antecedent to any transgression 
of their own ; and as the infliction of those evils implies a violation of 
law, it follows that they are regarded and treated as sinners on the 
ground of the disobedience of another." 2 "The interpretation, 
therefore, which we put upon the phrase in question [' because all 
sinned'] is possible. But further, it is the only interpretation 
which, with a shadow of reason, can be put upon it in our stan- 
dards." 3 . " Human nature, apart from human persons, cannot act, 
and therefore cannot contract guilt or be responsible." 4 Rather a 
summary method this of disposing of the old Augustinian canon, 
Primwn persona infecit naturam, seel post natura in ficit personam 
— a canon recognized and adopted by the entire Church of the 
Reformation. 

1 Revised Commentary on Romans, page 204. 2 Ibid., p. 252. 

3 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 187. 4 Theology, Vol. II., p. 536. 



158 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Again, says Dr. Hodge : " A sin of which it is impossible that 
we should be conscious as our voluntary act can no more be the 
ground of punishment as oar act than the sin of an idiot, or a 

madman, or of a corpse The assumption that we 

acted thousands of years before we were born, so as to be person- 
ally responsible for such act, is a monstrous assumption. It is, as 
Baur says, an unthinkable proposition," etc. 1 In assuming such a 
position, Dr. Hodge, as it seems to us, has left to himself no alter- 
native but either frankly to retrace the fatal step, or content him- 
self with being regarded as having ipso facto forsaken the Church 
doctrine of original sin for the Pelagian and Socinian scheme. 

The citations presented in our previous sections, while confirm- 
ing the propositions under which they are severally adduced, evince 
likewise the inadmissibility of any assumption which would con- 
found the first sin with Adam's merely personal sin. Yet in view 
of the reiterated and vehement assertions of Dr. Hodge since the 
appearance of my former essay, and of his attempts by denuncia- 
tion and sarcasm to ignore any further discussion of the issue in- 
volved — an issue, moreover, which he himself had raised in our 
Church — we shall now invite attention to a few specific testi- 
monies bearing directly upon the question specifically before us. 

The point referred to ought not to have been thus treated and 
ignored by that gentleman. The late Dr. Robert J. Breckinridge 
had, in his Theology, taken direct issue with him thereon, and his 
attention was, moreover, specifically and repeatedly called to it in 
my own essay. 2 And then, still further, in the effort to sustain 
himself herein Dr. Hodge has directly reversed and so ignored 
the doctrine of the Reformation, that the ground of the imputa- 
tion of the first sin is, that it was a sin common alike to our first 
parents and their posterity, and has sought to substitute in lieu of 
this fundamental truth the unsustained and fatally erroneous the- 
ory that the basis, in view of the natural and federal relation, was 
Adam's personal guilt alone, which was made common to the race 
by being imputed to them — a substitution which must, by an inex- 
orable logic, carry with it a radical and essential abandonment of 

1 Theology, Vol. IT., p. 223-234. 

2 See Dr. Breckinridge's Knoidedge of God Objectively Considered, pp. 428, 
429. And likewise the Danville Review, for 1862, pp. 558-561, and many- 
other places of the essay published therein. 



adam's sin and the first sin. 



159 



the whole system of evangelical doctrine. He has not even ap- 
proximated a discussion of the point at issue with the persons 
referred to (to say nothing of others), and the only apparent ap- 
proach to such discussion is the trivial attempt he has made to 
associate their theological position with one or another philosoph- 
ical theory, and so strike at it under his own imposed mask, though 
at the same time he had the fullest evidence before him, in scores 
of their decided and unambiguous utterances, that they disclaim 
and repudiate all philosophical attempts to elucidate or establish 
the doctrine of our participation in the first sin, as fully and as de- 
cidedly as they do such attempts to elucidate or establish the doc- 
trine of the Trinity itself. And, moreover, that they claim to rest 
it upon the plain and simple utterance of divine inspiration, and 
which they accept from the Holy Spirit as an explanatory principle, 
to wit: Adam sinned and all sinned ; and death passed upon all, 
inasmuch as all sinned. And thus, while they affirm that the very 
sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity, they no less decidedly 
affirm that we participated in that sin, and are condemned on 
account of the guilt thus contracted. - 

Dr. Hodge, therefore, has merely evaded, and that not in the most 
scholarly method, the discussion of the subject in that very aspect 
of it which now so deeply affects the best interests of the Church 
of which both he and I are members ; and so refuses, moreover, to 
meet the question as applied to the issue, whether the facts of reve- 
lation are to he accepted as facts? or may be rejected if our phil- 
osophy, or so-called u intuitions, " should refuse to concur in so re- 
garding them? The Church during ten years has been kept in 
expectation of a scholarly and ingenuous treatment of issues which 
he himself was the first to raise within her pale, but would now ignore 
— issues which bring his theory and utterances, as applied by him- 
self, into direct conflict with the published announcements of the 
ablest and most revered of her sons during the past centuries, 
while he attempts to satisfy this her reasonable expectation by a 
bald and threadbare reiteration of his previous and unsupported 
allegations. 

Has the Church, then, regarded the expressions, Adam' 's sin and 
the first sin, so far at least as concerns its imputation to posterity, 
as meaning nothing more than Adam's personal sin ? This is here 
the question. What say her own approved divines in answer ? 



160 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



The Citations. 

1. Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr, each distinctly employ 
the following words on the subject: "When, therefore, the apostle 
appears to assert that the sin for which we are condemned is not 
another's, but our own, he means that the sin of A J am was not so 
the sin of another but that it was our own also." (Comment, in 
Rom. v.) Here, then, the sin which was imputed, and for which 
"the judgment unto condemnation" came upon both Adam and 
his posterity, is plainly affirmed to be not his personal sin alone. 
Their testimony therefore is that the first sin was not, as Dr. 
Hodge maintains, merely Adam's personal sin. 

2. To the like purport speaks D. G. Sohnius: "In one respect 
it was the sin of Adam ; .... in another respect it was the sin 
of his posterity, who were in his loins, so that they committed the 
same sin, and hence it was imputed to them all." "On this 
text (Rom. v. 12) it is worthy of remark that it is not only as- 
serted that the punishment of death has passed upon all men, but 
the reason is added, namely, 'because all have sinned, so that the 
fault and punishment of the guilt and pollution are by the apostle 
joined together." 

3. Benedict Turrettin. 

Our readers will observe the direct reference by this divine and 
the one next cited to the recognized theology of the Church. He 
says: "Our Confessions include under original sin the com- 
munion (literally, mutual participation) we have in the first sin, 
and the loss of original righteousness and purity which we have 
sustained, and the inherent corruption of the soul; or, as Parens 
had previously expressed it, "Parlicipatio culpce, imputatio reatus, 
jpropagatio naturalis pravitatis," — statements which, as we have 
shown, appear to be the origin of the one given in answer to 
Question 18 of the Shorter Catechism. 

4. Isaac Junius, of Delft. 

" In the sum of the matter all the Reformed churches agree, 
and teach with unanimous consent, in accordance with the sacred 
Scriptures and the universal agreement of antiquity — first, that 
the sin of Adam was not a personal sin, but of the whole hu- 
man race, inasmuch as they were all included in the loins of 
Adam, and in Adam, the root of the whole human race, they sin- 
ned; secondly, that there was also transfused a principle contrary 



THE CITATIONS. 



161 



to original righteousness, contracted from, Adam in the first tran- 
sient act of his sin, and propagated by means of generation to all 
his posterity, so that all men by nature are guilty of death, averse 
from God and divine things, and inclined to evil." 

5. Chamier. 1 

" The very sin of Adam, I say, his own personal disobedience, 
must be imputed to his posterity. And so, also, in regard to the 
personal obedience of Christ, because the whole human race was 

considered in Adam by nature." "Hence it comes 

to pass that we are not only made sinners through Adam, but are 
declared to have sinned in him, which is a very different thing. 
(Inde factum, ut non tantum per Adamum peccatores facti sunt 
•omnes, sed et in ipso peccasse dicantur quod longe aliud est.") 

6. Lambert Dan^eus, referring to the fall of our first pa- 
rents, says: "The first sin rendered them guilty before God; then 
the corruption was transferred to us: -on account of this inbeing in 
us we are now guilty, as infected with our own depravity — vile and 
spotted, hateful to God, not only in Adam, but as we are viewed 
as the fountain and root of the human race ; but as we are considered 
in ourselves, and from ourselves corrupted^ 

7. Zanchius says : " But the apostle teaches that all men were 
in Adam when he also says that in him all sinned : to wit, poten- 
tially and originally ; not by act or actually (duvdpet et originaliter, 
non actu seu actualiter.) .... So, too, it appears that all 
souls were in Adam, in a certain way, as in the root of the whole 
human race. .... Now we hold that souls (which are not 
transmitted from Adam as to their substance), are yet said to have 
been and to have sinned in Adam ; seeing, to wit, that men have 
been in Adam and have sinned in him as in the original beginning 
and root. .... Hence, also, we are truly said to have been 
and to have sinned in Adam, because in him all men have sinned. 
Original sin, therefore, is not so the proper sin of Adam but that 
it is the common sin of all men : non ita proprium est Adse quin 
omnium hominum sit commune." 2 

8. John Piscator, of Her born. 

" Original sin is the apostasy (defectio) of all the natural heirs 

1 See in Danville Review for 1862, pp. 271 seq„ a brief sketch of this great 
divine. 

2 De Peccato Originis, Thesib. 8 and 4, Opp. Tom. IV., p. 49, seq. 

11 



162 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of Adam, who being in his loins revolted from God to the devil y 
and the corruption or vitiosity of nature inflicted on man by the 
just judgment of God on account of the apostasy." (Comment, 
in Rom. vii. 7.) "The apostle speaks especially of that first sin 
which our first parents committed in Paradise, and we together 
with them ; et nos una cum illis." (Comment, in Horn. v. 12.) 

9. David Pareus, of Heidelberg. 

" It is manifest, therefore, that the apostle assigned this reason 
why all men die — because all have sinned — evidently to prove the 
existence of original sin in all men, Christ excepted (He not being 
naturally begotten from Adam), and that it is truly sin because cdl 
have truly sinned in Adam, (quia omnes vere peccaverunt in 

Adamo) He had said in verse 12, that all sinned, and 

here (verse 19) that all were made guilty." (Comment, in Rom. v.) 

10. Drellingcourt, Pastor, in Paris. 

" The sin of Adam was imputed to us because we all sinned in 
Adam." 

11. John Owen. 

" In respect to our wills, we were not thus innocent neither, for 

we all sinned in Adam, as the apostle affirmeth J^ow, be 

this punishment what it will, never so small, yet, if we have no 
demerit of our own, nor interest in Adam's sin, it is such an act of 
injustice as we must reject from the most holy with a God forbid !" 

12. Andrew Willets. 

In his Hexapla or Sixfold Commentarie on Romans, a work in 
high repute with his cotemporaries, both in England and on the 
continent, he says, in response to Bellarmin and others : "We have 
better reasons out of the Scriptures to refute this assertion; for 
where there is no sin death hath no power; because all are sinners 
by nature, they all die ; otherwise the apostle had not reasoned 
well that death reigned from Adam to Moses, because all had sinned 
(verse 14); and (verse 19) the apostle saith that by one man's dis- 
obedience many are peccatores constituti, made sinners, which is 
more than to be counted sinners, or to have sin imputed. .... If 
there were not in us original sin by nature of our own, but only 
Adam's imputed, it would follow that his posterity should be pun- 
ished not for their own, but for another s sin; which were against 
the rule of God's justice." He also cites Peter Martyr as like- 
wise affirming the same. (Page 275.) 



THE CITATIONS. 



163 



14. Francis Turretin. 

"From this it appears that the sin of Adam -was not peculiar to 
himself, hut common to the whole nature, since on account of it 
punishment has passed upon all." (De Satisfac, Par. I., § 33.) 

15. Herman Witsius. 

"By these words, w Tt.dvres ijfiap-njv, he gives the reason why he 
had asserted that by the sin of one man death passed npon all. 
This, says he, ought not to astonish you, for all have sinned." 
Can any serious man possibly suppose that this and the number- 
less similar declarations by Calvinistic divines in explicating the 
doctrine of original sin were designed to convey the idea that we 
ought not to be astonished that God inflicts the most fearful pun- 
ishments upon the race, inasmuch as He first inflicts guilt upon 
them so as to furnish a pretext for their punishment f This is 
the gratuitous imputation scheme. But would it be calculated to 
allay our astonishment at the conduct of an individual who had set 
his dogs upon a neighbor and torn him in pieces to have him say, 
" There is no ground for astonishment in the matter, for I first 
clothed my neighbor in the skin of a wild beast, and then set my 
dogs on him, and of course they tore him to pieces." 

16. John Henry Heidegger. 

This eminent divine, being substantially the author of the Hel- 
vetian Consensus, his views on the subject before us possess no 
little interest. Our readers will doubtless be gratified to have a 
passage from him in his own language. He says, " Vera autem 
imputatio peccati Adamici corruptionem posterorum insitam, 
tanquam causa hujus meritoria, antecedit, non sequitur. Non 
enim priraum peccatum nobis imputatur, quia corrupti nascimur, 
sed corrupti nascimur, qnia primum peccatum nobis ad corruptio- 
nem et condemnationem imputatur. In eo enim imputatio con- 
sistit, quod Deus peccante Adamo judicavit, posteros ejus, ntpote 
peccato eidem implicitos, non esse dignos imagine sua, sed potius 
poena omni, qua Adamum peccantem plexit ; adeoque etiam spirit- 
ual! morte plectandos." 1 In what conceivable sense, then, could it 
be supposed that Heidegger could have regarded the first sin, or 
Adam's sin, as importing nothing more than Adam's personal sin? 
And to prove that the Church herself entertained such a notion, 
Dr. Hodge has very often referred to the Formula Consensus. 

1 See De Moor, Vol. III., pp. 277, 278, and also our § 13, A., No. 6, above. 



164 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



We conclude the section by adducing a few names of later 
date. 

17. De Moor in no way departs from the same representation. 
He says, " We have violated (the covenant) in our representative ; 
hence, on account of the fault committed in Adam (culpam in 
Adamo commissam) and imputed to us, we all are deservedly pun- 
ished ; merito punimur." (Perpet. Com., Tom. III., p. 285.) 

18. Wltherspoon, President of Nassau Hall. 

Referring to Romans v. 12-19, he says, "And, indeed, when 
we consider the universality of the effects of the fall, it is not to be 
accounted for in any other way than from Adam's being the fede- 
ral head of the human race, and they sinning in and falling with 
him in his first transgression." 1 

19. Robert Haldane. 

" If, then, all are condemned by that sin, all must be guilty of 
it, for the righteous Judge would not condemn the innocent. To 
say that any are punished or condemned for Adam's sin who are 
not guilty of it, is to accuse the righteous God of injustice. Can 
God impute to any man anything that is not true ? If Adam's 
sin is not ours as truly as it was Adam's, could God impute it to 
us ? Does God deal with men as sinners while they are not truly 
such?" 2 

20. Philip Schaff, referring to 1$ a> in Romans v. 12, remarks, 
" I prefer the translation so far as, inasmuch as, which gives good 

sense in all the Pauline passages It is not so much a 

causal as a qualifying and conditioning conjunction, (a relative or 
modified on), which in our passage shows more clearly the con- 
nection of death with sin. It implies that a moral participation 
of all men in the sin of Adam is the medium or cause of their 
death, just as faith on our part is the moral condition of our par- 
ticipation of Christ's life. It is unfavorable to the doctrine of 
gratuitous imputation. The legal act of imputation is not arbi- 
trary and unconditioned, but rests on a moral ground and an ob- 
jective reality" 8 

21. Dorner, of Berlin, referring to the same subject, says : 
" There is, then, a sin of the race in which all participate, but 
which is not wrought with personal guilt. Hence the universality 

1 Works, Vol. IV., page 96. 2 Commentary on Romans, page 217. 

3 See Seribner's edition of Lange on Romans, page 177. 



THE CITATIONS. 



165 



of sin in every individual. The character of this sin of the race 
is moral wortldessness and evil, but it is not of such a nature as to 
determine the destiny of the individual. Each meuf ;r of the race 
is also personally accountable. Personal guilt is h, possible with- 
out the racial sin, and is therefore without necessary universality." 1 
Thus is the moral and objective ground for this imputation af- 
firmed by the Church, and thus is the broad distinction between 
the first sin, or Adam's sin, and Adam's merely personal sin, the 
invariable teaching of the Church. She pronounces the guilt of 
the race in that first transgression to be real, subjective, and uni- 
versal. And though she often speaks of the sin as Adam's sin, 
she utterly repudiates the conception so insisted on by Dr. Hodge, 
and on which his whole theory leans for support, that it was the 
sin of Adam only. I repeat, then, again, that vital and fundamen- 
tal truth, affecting the whole system of the doctrines of grace, is 
involved in the issue thus presented, and now imperatively forced 
upon the Church ; nor can she shrink from the sacred obligation 
of meeting that issue, and of giving a clear and decided utterance 
in relation to it, except at infinite peril of proving recreant to the 
hallowed trust reposed in her by her glorious and exalted Head. 

1 See Outlines of Dr. Corner's System of Theology, (translated by Professor 
Hall, of Antioch College,) published in the Presbyterian Quarterly and Prince- 
ton Review for 1873, page 67. 



PART III. 



IN WHICH AEE CONSIDEEED THE GEOUNDS ALLEGED BY 
DB. HODGE IN DEFENCE OF HIS THEOKY, TOGETHEE 
WITH THE EESULTS WHICH MUST LOGICALLY ACCBUE 
FEOM ITS EECEPTION. 



§ 15. Remarks on the General Subject. 

THERE is one position assumed and greatly insisted on by Dr. 
Hodge in the previous efforts to sustain his theory and exe- 
gesis, but in respect to which the ten years' examination preceding 
the issue of his Lectures (see our § 1 above) has obviously com- 
pelled him to forego ; that is, it has convinced him (as it doubtless 
must have convinced any man) that the doctrine which he claims 
to be Augustinian on the subject before us is not taught either in 
any creed of the churches of the Reformation, or in the theology 
of their approved divines. Any one, however, who will compare 
his previous publications on this topic with his last, cannot but 
discover that in the last he has failed utterly to adduce any au- 
thoritative theological announcement in support of those imperious 
dogmatic utterances which are so constantly appearing in the 
former. Calvin, Rivetus, Owen, Turrettin, Heidegger, and even 
the Formula Consensus Helvetica, all of which play so conspicuous 
a part in the former, are found to be " exeunt omnes" in the latter, 
— that is, they are no longer adduced on the subject before us, 
(though, perhaps, referred to on others); for to any competent 
mind a fair investigation must evince how entire is their want of 
sympathy with the dogma of the gratuitous imputation of sin. 
Dr. Hodge can specify no approved divines of our communion 
who have taught that theory, though he still claims that the 
Church has always regarded it as her recognized doctrine. 

No dispute has existed between Princeton and Danville on the 
question whether pain, sickness, death, and the other evils we here 
suffer, result to us as the penal consequence of the first transgres- 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



167 



sion ; but the point in issue is, whether those evils are punish- 
ments for Adam's merely personal sin, or peccatum alienum f 
And this point, though certainly it is sufficiently apparent, Dr. 
Hodge has alike failed either to apprehend or to appreciate. Let 
it be observed, then, that in Adam's case his sin produced these 
evils to himself. This, of course, will not be denied. Did, then, 
his merely personal sin, or culpa, alone, bring them likewise upon 
his posterity ? Or was it his sin with their participation therein 
that brought them upon the posterity, as his own personal offence 
brought them upon himself? The reader, we hope, will pardon 
this repetitious particularity ; for it is our purpose that in no future 
attempt at an intelligent discussion of the theme the actual issue 
shall be again ignored in the way it has been by Princeton. In 
the Calvinistic church, until lately, there never has been any denial 
of this participation, or any dispute in regard to it. She has ever 
considered the guilt of Adam and of his posterity, through com- 
munion or mutual participation, as the procuring cause of all the 
evils referred to. And when the conception of a federal or repre- 
sentative relation was, by Cocceius (1669), more fully elaborated 
with a view to the elucidation of the doctrine, the true idea was, 
not that the guilt of the representative was charged upon the repre- 
sented to constitute them sinners (as Dr. Hodge so preposterously 
imagines), but that it was charged because the guilt wees common 
alike to them and to their representative. 

In view of these facts, each of which is susceptible of actual 
demonstration, it is impossible to conceive what Dr. Hodge should 
expect to realize by assuming, and even insisting upon the assump- 
tion, that they are in fundamental error who reject his theory of 
the gratuitous imputation of sin, and that he should further affirm 
that history shows that they who do this are ultimately led to 
reject the doctrine of the gratuitous imputation of the righteous- 
ness of Christ for justification. This remark is calculated to make 
a deep impression upon the mind of the uninformed but pious be" 
liever in proportion as the authority is relied on from which it 
emanates, and also to do an inconceivable amount of injury to 
such if false. Dr. Hodge has, however, assumed, and must now 
sustain, the responsibility of giving it utterance, and we shall pro- 
ceed to lay before our readers his reasons for doing so. 

In our former essay we took occasion kindly to admonish Dr. 



r. 



168 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Hodge that such representations were unauthorized, and had no 
ground to sustain them ; that they were offensive, and that if re- 
iterated he might with reason expect the errors of his theory, 
which required such allegations in its support, to be exposed more 
unsparingly than had been already done. 1 But he was deaf to the 
intimation, and has, nevertheless, without stint and most offensively, 
repeated them, both in his Revised Commentary and in his The- 
ology ; and thus has left us no alternative except either to admit 
such inaccurate and uncalled for accusations against the theology 
of the Church and its supporters, or to demonstrate their injustice 
by a clear expose of the fallacious representations upon which they 
are attempted to be sustained; and so to rescue the Church, if not 
already too late, from that fearful and now impending apostasy of 
doctrine into which she must inevitably sink if such statements 
are to be accepted as truly expressing her fundamental principles. 

In order to justify this his representation, Dr. Hodge, in his 
Theology, 2 repeats what he had in substance affirmed many times 
previously in support of his gratuitous imputation scheme, that 
"the Protestant theologians agree in holding that 'imputatio jus- 
titias Christi et culpas Adami pari passu ambulant, et vel utraque 
sint vel utraque agnosci debet," and gives De Moor 3 as authoriz- 
ing the representation. This is one of those astounding perver- 
sions of authorities which are found so frequently occurring in Dr. 
Hodge, and which lead the mind of the intelligent reader to pause, 
and wonder whether heedlessness or design could have prompted 
it. The unlearned reader is deceived by an apparent array of 
facts and authoritative statements, when in fact the whole repre- 
sentation is entirely deceptive and unauthorized. De Moor has no 
more held and taught the theory of the Adamic sin which Dr. 
Hodge holds and ascribes to him than he held and taught the 
doctrines of the Mormons ; and yet he is here brought forward as 
a weighty authority inculcating that very scheme, and then, more- 
over, as affirming that a denial of it must lead to a denial of the 
imputation of Christ's righteousness for our justification. But let 
us proceed: 

Having had some acquaintance with De Moor, and never having 
obtained therefrom the impression that he had lent any counten- 

1 See Danville Review for 1862, page 562. 2 Vol. III., page 207. 
3 Comment. Perpet. in Marck, Tom. III., pp. 255, et seq. 



« 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



1C9 



ance to such a theory as the gratuitous imputation of sin, I at 
once turned to his work, and as the affair, in view of Dr. Hodge's 
aforesaid representation, is one of very grave importance, I here 
lay before our readers as briefly as possible the result. 

The context of the passage quoted by Dr. Hodge properly be- 
gins with Section 31, (see our last marginal reference,) in which 
he explicates the proposition or thesis that the cause of the corrup- 
tion of the race is the guilt of Adam imputed to his posterity, and 
upon which he thus remarks : 

"1. If we all die in Adam, we have therefore all sinned in Adam. 
But the former is true. Ergo: The reason of the major proposition 
is, that death is not inflicted without sin, nor punishment without 
crime. But as we all could not sin in Adam otherwise than as 
we were reckoned in and represented by him, so neither could we 
die in him unless on account of the imputation of his crime by 
which we are constituted guilty." The continuation is as fol- 
lows: 

"2. Quomodo in Christo vivifcamur, ita in Adamo morimur. 
In Christo vivificamur turn per ipsius demeritum facta institise 
Christi nobis imputatione, turn vera efficientia per Spiritus ipsius 
vivifici virtutem. Similiter in Adamo morimur turn per demeri- 
turn culpa3 Adami nobis imputatum, et contractum hinc nobis 
omnibus mortis reatum; turn ratione efficientim, quia ab Adamo 
mors Spirituals sive corruptio, quae morti ulteriori nos subjecit 
ad nos propagatur. Dcjo vero illa uti in vivificatione per 
Christum, ita nec in morte per Adamum ad nos deleta sejung-i 
a iNYiCEM debent." That is, in brief: "As in our vivification 
through Christ the imputation of His righteousness is not to be 
severed from the efficacious or regenerating operation of the Holy 
Spirit, so in our death through Adam the imputation of his guilt 
to us is not to be severed from our inward corruption. In each 
case the two are to be regarded as co-existing." And having thus 
clearly explained the topic, he cites Rom. v. 12-19 in proof of 
the accuracy of the representation ; and in remarking on this pas- 
sage employs the expression which, as above stated, Dr. Hodge 
has inaccurately quoted from him, and the sense of which is, 
u And therefore the imputation of the righteousness of Christ (as 
just explained) and the imputation of the offence of Adam (as 
just explained) proceed with equal pace ; so that either they must 



170 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



"be both alike abandoned, or be both alike maintained." A re- 
mark the truth of which no candid explorer of the past can 
deny. 

By citing the passage as an independent statement, and omitting 
the first two words which give the reader the inferential nature 
of the statement, Dr. Hodge has thus far divested it of its just 
force and application to the case in hand. De Moor presents it in 
the form of a sequence from the exposition or explanation which 
he had just presented — "Adeoqtje imputation etc. — "and there- 
fore the imputation," etc. ; that is, the doctrine of imputation as 
he had just defined it (and not as errorists had attempted to re- 
present it.) In other words, not the imputation of righteousness 
severed from renewal by the Holy Spirit, nor the imputation of 
the offence of Adam severed from inherent corruption, hut with 
these included and co-existing . These are the two imputations 
which proceed hand in hand, and of which the acceptance or rejec- 
tion of either is the logical forerunner of the acceptance or rejec- 
tion of both. Such is transparently the meaning of the remark 
whose import Dr. Hodge has so misconceived and entirely re- 
versed, and then applies the statement itself to prove that " the 
Protestant theologians agree" in holding, that if his own mon- 
strous doctrine of the gratuitous imputation of sin (which does 
confessedly and logically separate the two things in both cases, by 
making regeneration a consequence of justification, and inherent 
depravity a consequence of the imputation of Adam's personal 
guilt 1 ), be rejected, that rejection must be followed by an abandon- 
ment of the doctrine of justification through the imputation of the 
righteousness of Christ. 2 

It is, perhaps, scarcely necessary to dwell upon the point, but 
taking into consideration the grave importance of the subject- 

1 See Princeton Review for 1860, p. 341, and the note in Dr. Hodge's The- 
ology, Vol. II., p. 194. 

2 In the course of the argument in our former essay it became our painful 
-duty to point out a number of like instauces of careless misapprehension and 
perversion of his authorities by Dr. Hodge. Dr. Schaff likewise, in his notes 
on Rom. v. (see Scribner's edition of Lange on Romans), has been under the 
necessity of adverting to others not less humiliating. And certaiuly, such 
things should have awakened a degree of caution sufficient to guard against 
a recurrence of the like, in any subsequent publication at least, in matters 
involving interests of such transcendent importance to the souls of men and 
to the Church of God. 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



171 



matter itself, as remarked above, we shall add a few words in re- 
lation thereto. 

Could anything, for example, be more unreasonable than that I 
should claim to hold the latter of these two imputations, i. e., that 
on account of the fall of our first parents, as inseparably connected 
with our own inherent sin, hereditary depravity and guilt came 
upon their posterity, while I at the same time should insist that 
the merely personal sin of Adam is the sole cause of their inherent 
corruption ? Would not the latter affirmation really nullify and 
subvert the former, by tracing the whole of the existing evil to the 
peccatum alienum as the alone procuring cause, and to the exclu- 
sion of depravity as any part of the cause 1 In what possible 
sense, then, could I claim to recognize both as unitedly or insepar- 
ably constituting the cause ? In what sense, or by what rules of 
reasoning, could I maintain that the personal sin of Adam, con- 
joined with our own depravity, procured the evils we suffer from 
the fall, and at the same time allege that this very depravity itself 
is one of the evils which, along with all the others, the personal 
sin of Adam has brought upon us ? Moral corruption, spiritual 
death, etc., says Dr. Hodge, do not come upon us for our own de- 
merit or subjective guilt, but are inflicted upon the race by puni- 
tive justice for the peccatum alienum of Adam; and at the same 
time he claims to maintain that both inherent corruption and im- 
puted sin are the procuring cause of those evils. 

Is this attempt nonsense ? It certainly sounds very much like 
it. But let us survey it in the light of a brief illustration. 

A nobleman, for example, is convicted and attainted of high 
treason, and, as a consequence, brings the attainder upon his inno- 
cent offspring. A writer, on undertaking to explain the ground 
of these their sufferings, says, "Properly speaking, there were two 
grounds which constituted the procuring cause of their condemna- 
tion and other evils, and those grounds were, first, their father's 
attainder ; and secondly, their own." Would there be any reason 
or sense in this, seeing that their father's attainder, and nothing 
else, was the procuring cause of their own ? And so, if I affirm 
that Adam's personal sin is, by a divine sentence, the procuring 
cause of the moral corruption and condemnation of his posterity, 
in what conceivable sense can I claim also to hold that Adam's sin 
and our own corruption are alike the procuring cause of our con- 



172 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



demnation and other evils? or to hold, as the Church of God has 
always held, that corruption and guilt are both derived by ordi- 
nary generation from Adam ? Would not such language be plainly 
deceptive ? All our previous citations evince that the Church now 
holds, and ever has held on this subject, not that Adam alone in- 
curred the wrath or displeasure of God by his si/i, and that his 
posterity deserved that displeasure merely because he deserved it ; 
this never was her doctrine, but a doctrine she has ever indignantly 
disclaimed and condemned ; but the doctrine, as she has ever en- 
tertained and taught it, is thus expressed in the Form of Con- 
cord : " Bepudiantur Pelagianorum falsse opiniones quod peccatum 
originale sit tantum reatus seu culpa, quae ex aliena iransgressione 
absque ulla naturae corruptione sit contracta ;" i. " We reject the 
false opinions of the Pelagians, to-wut : that original sin is only 
the guilt or criminality which has been contracted from a foreign 
transgression, without any corruption of nature." But while she 
repudiates these falsce opiniones (which logic itself can never dis- 
criminate from the theory of Dr. Hodge), she did hold, and always 
has held, that we likewise deserve the sentence of condemnation, 
because we participated with our first parents in their sin. So 
that this imputation, being a sentence of condemnation, has been 
by the Lutheran and Calvinistic communions always based upon 
the equal recognition and simultaneousness both of Adam's sin and 
our own inherent sin, both alike being imputed for condemnation. 

But, says Dr. Hodge, if you bring into the imputation of 
Adam's sin for condemnation the element of the subjective desert 
of his seed, you must likewise introduce subjective desert into the 
imputation of righteousness to Christ's seed for justification. This, 
however, is a baseless assumption. He claims to find reason for 
it in the equally unfounded assertion that the modes of the trans- 
mission of both sin and righteousness are a part of the Pauline 
analogy, in Pom. v. 12-19. But this also, as we shall prove, is an 
assumption contrary to fact, since, as will be fully shown, the 
mode of transmission forms no part of the comparison therein insti- 
tuted. Nor has the church of God ever so regarded it. 1 And 
then, further, it is sufficient, to show the wholly unfounded nature 

1 In the Danville Review for 1862, pp. 517-540, we have established, by an 
abundance of unimpeachable facts (to which we shall refer in the sequel), how 
grievous is the mistake of Dr. Hodge in relation to this whole matter. 



GENERAL, REMARKS. 



173 



■of this assumption, to call the reader's attention to the fact that the 
imputation of Christ's righteousness is a sentence of approval, or 
a gratuitous gift of pure grace or mercy to the undeserving; while, 
on the contrary, the imputation of the first sin is the work of puni- 
tive justice— a sentence unto condemnation — and, therefore, re- 
quires subjective demerit on the part of those who are condemned. 
It is not a sentence which produces subjective desert (which Dr. 
Hodge maintains, and which is simply ridiculous ), but a sentence 
basea upon and pronounced in view of actually existing facts : the 
condemned are sinners, and the sentence of condemnation, comes 
upon them because they are such. This objection of Dr. Hodge, 
therefore, is, as the old Calvinists have always taught, wholly un- 
founded, and in direct conflict with the analogy of faith, as well 
as with the testimony of the divine word, and, as we have shown 
in our former essay, is only a reproduction in another form of 
the old supralapsarian sophism, that if sin be the procuring cause 
of reprobation, then faith and good works must be the procuring 
cause of election, thus confounding the divine bestowment of the 
gifts of mercy with the exactions of punitive justice, and referring 
the operations of the justice and grace of God not to his moral 
nature, but to his will. 

The old Calvinists frequently speak of the imputation of Adam's 
sin as bringing pollution and death to his posterity (but never of 
Adam's peccatum alienum producing these effects), and as the 
cause of pollution and death to them; yet never losing sight of 
the fact above referred to by De Moor, respecting the inseparable- 
ness of the imputation frorn our own subjective desert on account 
of our participation in that sin, and in explanation of which they, 
moreover, in every form affirm that :i we sinned in Adam and in 
him willed this depravation." But the learned Cloppenburgh, and 
.several others in his day, seem to have arrived at the conclusion 
that the human intellect might be able to comprehend how we, 
the posterity, should then have willed to sin ; and through their 
speculations were, to a certain extent, induced to fall in with the 
Socinian and Remonstrant conception of a merely forensic impu- 
tation of sin and guilt to the race, though still claiming that the 
putation was in no way, either incidentally or otherwise, produc- 
tive of the moral corruption, but found it already existing, and 
that it ivas traceable to the first sin through ordinary generation. 



174 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



It was not, therefore, such a forensic decision as in their view con- 
stituted us guilty and depraved because Adam sinned, but a 
forensic decision that we are subjectively criminal on the ground 
of our natural and federal relation to him ivhen he sinned. This 
putation, moreover, asserted our then existing subjective guilt, but 
did not, as Dr. Hodge's does, claim to produce it. It simply pro- 
nounced us guilty, without pretending to explicate how the sub- 
jective guilt was contracted by us, other than that it descends to 
us by natural generation. In this way, therefore, they guarded 
the justice of God against impeachment, since He did not produce 
the guilt by imputing it, but merely charged it as already existing in 
the race, because Adam sinned. And thus they claimed, likewise,, 
a subjective moral basis for the judgment unto condemnation, which 
the Socinian and Remonstrant schools, however, utterly rejected. 

It was this supralapsarian conception — itself a plain departure 
from the recognized theology — which, through an utter misappre- 
hension, seems to have led the Princeton Professor into the 
Socinian error of endeavoring to base the imputation itself, or con- 
demnatory sentence, upon the mere relation of Adam to his pos- 
terity, without any reference to demerit or subjective desert. But 
the conception that the natural and federal relation of Adam could 
bo connect him with us, and vice versa, as to make us partakers 
with him in his condemnation, and yet not connect us subjectively 
or demeritoriously with his guilt by participation, though clearly 
elaborated by Crellius, the great leader of the Socinian school, is, 
nevertheless, an idea nowhere to be found in the acknowledged 
theology of the Reformation. Dr. Hodge can find it nowhere 
asserted in that theology. It comes, therefore, necessarily under 
the category of "New Lightism" and is really "an original idea 
in our theology." And though the Professor and other conductors 
of the Princeton Review, prompted undoubtedly by a very com- 
mendable modesty, have repeatedly and most earnestly averred 
that that periodical does not contain one original idea in theology, 1 
we will venture the appeal to our readers in justification of our 
offering the suggestion whether that self-depreciating disclaimer 
ought not, in view of the foregoing facts, to be now withdrawn. 

Let it be observed, then, that the Calyinistic church never 

1 See Index Volume to Princeton Review, pp. 3, 4, 9, 11. (Philadelphia, 
1871.) 



GENERAL REMARKS. 



175 



maintained that the personal sin of Adam was our personal sin, or 
that his sin and moral character were transferred to us, though 
she has ever affirmed that his sin was imputed to us, and that we 
were guilty of it by a mutual participation. The guilt of his sin 
was charged to us as participators; the guilt of the principal to 
those whom he represented. But this neither makes his personal 
act our personal act, nor his moral character ours, any farther than 
the like would accrue from our ecclesiastical, civil, or social repre- 
sentation. Our guilt and moral character are our own, and became 
ultimately what they are from our participation in his transgres- 
sion, or sinning where he sinned. There was no personal identi- 
fication further than this. 

We ought also in this connection briefly to notice several other 
equally unaccountable misconceptions, and consequent misstate- 
ments, of Dr. Hodge, in his treatment of the theme. For, as pre- 
sented by him, they have had no little effect towards leading the 
unwary to conclude that his theory and exegesis are truly a part 
of Calvinistic theology. 

And first: We solicit attention to the allegation that the Lu- 
theran divines of the Reformation concur with him as to the penal 
nature of innate, inherent depravity, because they affirm this de- 
pravity to be a penal evil. In remarking on the subject, he, in 
reply to any who may be supposed to deny this concurrence, asks : 
" If [this depravity be] penal, of what is it the punishment ? Of 
Adam's sin. Then, if this sin be morally ours, they taught that 
men are punished with moral depravity for being morally de- 
praved ; they assume the existence of corruption to account for its 
existence ! All^beeomes plain if you will allow these men to 
mean what they say they mean.- ' 1 But in this again, Dr. Hodge 
merely perplexes the question through that strange inadvertency 
so often observable in the references to his authorities. The Lu- 
theran divines did, as our preceding citations abundantly show, 
affirm and teach that inherent or hereditary depravity is a penal 
evil; but they, one and all, most decidedly denied that it was the 
punishment of a peccatum alienum, or AdairCs merely personal 
sin. They taught that it was the punishment of Adam's sin, and 
of our sin in participating with Adam,. Such, then, is the amount 
of this agreement. It consists of a toto coelo antagonism. 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 184. 



176 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



And so, too, and in the same connection, referring to the doc- 
trine which is really the acknowledged doctrine of the Calvin- 
istic church, he confounds it with that of a literal transfer of moral 
acts or character, and asks : " Does the doctrine of imputation, as 
taught by the old Calvinists as a body, include the idea of 'literal 
oneness' and transfer of moral acts or moral character?" 1 And 
again: "What do our standards and old Calvinists generally mean 
when they say 4 all mankind sinned in Adam?' The expression 
obviously admits of two interpretations: the one, that which the 
Protestant and spectator would put upon it, viz. : that in virtue 
of £ a literal oneness ' all mankind really acted in him — his act was 
literally our act ; the other proceeds on the principle of representa- 
tion — we acted in him as our representative. This latter interpre- 
tation is at least possible But further, it is the only inter- 
pretation w T hich, with a shadow of reason, can be put upon it in 
our standards;" 2 to all of which I reply most emphatically, that 
neither the old Calvinists (as our citations from them have proved, 
see Sections 9, 10, 12, 13, and 14, above), nor our standards, teach 
the one or the other in any such sense as is here asseverated by 
Dr. Hodge. The old Calvinists, or Calvinistic church, as a body, 
have ever taught that we really, i. e., morally, and not merely 
putatively or forensically, sinned in and fell with Adam, and that 
his guilt and our guilt, by mutual participation, were imputed or 
charged upon the posterity ; a doctrine which neither supposes nor 
implies any transfer either of moral acts or of moral character; 
and ever since Augustine gave utterance to the celebrated for- 
mula," Fuerunt omnes in lumbis Adami quando damnatus est ; et 
ideo sine illis damnatus non est ;" 3 associated with the impressive 
statement, Peccatum "antiquum quo nihil est ad prcedicandum 
notius, nihil ad intelligendum secretius, m this has been the posi- 
tion assumed by the Church. 

It is also in point to enquire here, inasmuch as Dr. Hodge would 
explain all the aforesaid expressions of the old Ref ormers forensi- 
cally, juridically, and putatively, and claims to be able to do so, 
(though he has wisely concluded still to postpone the attempt,) 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 185. 

2 See Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 186-189. 

3 Contra Julian, Pelag., lib. V., cap. 2. 

4 De Moribus Eccles. Cat., cap. 22. 



GEXEEAL REMARKS 



177 



how it happens that he is so taken aback with the same expressions 
precisely when employed by theologians now ? 1 Even when they 
employ no other language than the Church from the beginning 
has employed to express her faith, he denounces the phraseology, 
and ridicules it as Pantheistic and nonsensical. And then, through- 
out a discussion with the Quarterly Christian Spectator, he insists 
ad nauseam on those explanations, and even employs thereon such 
language as the following : " Those gentlemen err precisely as the 
early opponents of the Reformers or Calvinists did, by insisting on 
taking in a moral sense modes of expression, which were used and 
meant to be understood in a judicial or forensic sense. This is 
the Tzpmrov (peudos of our Xew Haven brethren on this subject, and 
it runs through all their exhibition of their views of the old Cal- 
vinistic doctrine. In this respect they are treading, as just re- 
marked, in the footsteps of all the early opposers of these doc- 
trines.'' 2 The same allegations are substantially reaffirmed in his 
later essays and Revised Commentary, and in his Theology ! But 
in none of them does he attempt to indicate the source to which he 
is indebted for such marvellous but most unfortunate representa- 
tions. 

It is impossible even to imagine the extent of the injury which 
these repeated and singularly inaccurate affirmations are calculated 
to effect in our Church and upon our rising ministry. But instead 
of here expatiating on this aspect of it, (with which our readers will 
be made acquainted in the sequel,) I will briefly state what no 
candid mind who is acquainted with the facts will attempt to deny, 
to-wit : 1, That the early Calvinists adopted the expressions re- 
ferred to (i. e., as to our having sinned when Adam sinned, and 
thus becoming veritable sinners), directly from the word of God ; 
2, That they always insisted that these expressions are to be received 
in a moral sense; 3, That when the Socinian school arose, and in 
its efforts to abolish the Church doctrine of original sin elaborated 
and insisted on the exegesis that these expressions should be received 
or understood only in a forensic or putative sense, aiming thus to 
destroy the doctrine that we participated in the first sin, the Luthe- 
rans and Calvinists with one voice repudiated both the exegesis and 

1 See, for example, Dr. Baird's Elohim Revealed, and Dr. Hodge's review 
of it in the April and October numbers of the Princeton Review for 1860. 

2 Princeton Essays, First Series, page 169. 

8 



178 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



the argument. It was therefore the " early opposers " who took 
the very ground against the Church doctrine which Dr^ Hodge here 
charges the Reformers themselves with taking in its defence. 
" The early opposers," therefore, did not err in the manner asserted 
by Dr. Hodge, nor did the early Calvinists make any such reply 
to them as he has stated; nor can Dr. Hodge cite any instances 
of the kind. Their reply uniformly is, that the imputation was 
just, and was merited by us, because we ourselves had become truly 
sinners in the first sin; and that the imputation itself does not 
constitute us guilty, but only makes it appear that we are guilty. 
Such was their answer, and they repudiate the notion that the im- 
putation was merely forensic or putative. The question as thus 
raised pertained to the ground of the imputation, not its effects.. 
They affirm a moral ground and an objective reality, while their 
Pelagian and Socinian adversaries affirm a forensic or putative 
ground alone. The Reformers affirm that we, by veritably sin- 
ning in Adam, deserved the sentence of condemnation, and that 
this sentence was no more forensic or putative in our own case 
than it was in the case of our first parents themselves. 

But to conclude. The points herein involved are of the deepest 
practical significance, and I would most earnestly entreat our min- 
istry especially to consider that the step from a merely forensic 
imputation of sin to a merely forensic expiation of sin, is not a 
lengthy stride. It has often been taken, and it is easily taken. 
And most certainly it behooves those who are now inculcating the 
former to ponder it in relation to this very obvious consequence. 
Socinus himself, though he rejected with scorn the doctrine of im- 
putation as held by the Church, yet by his exegesis of Rom. v. 12- 
19, justified the forensic (which his followers adopted), and hence, 
by an easy gradation, insisted strongly that the satisfaction ren- 
dered by Christ for sin was merely forensic, and not a true expia- 
tion. He and his school had, against all usage, construed dpapna 
d/jLaprwAo? and 6.tj.ap~6y~v^ in a merely forensic sense (as Dr. Hodge 
and his followers now do), and they thereupon found but little dif- 
ficulty in setting aside, after the same maimer, the legal and estab_ 

lished USage of Xurpov d'sriAurpov, Aurpw<Tt$ : d.TZuAozpajffi?, or/.alwpa, and 

[Xaspd?, and so to repudiate the doctrine of satisfaction through 
Christ. Such is ever' the infinite peril attending all efforts to 
place upon the plain and obvious announcements of the word of 



ROMANS V. 12-21, AND THE COVENANT. 



179 



God a meaning which the Holy Spirit has not conveyed, and so 
compel them to harmonize with a preconceived theory. 1 And in 
the present instance it is impossible to find language to express 
adequately the deep anguish of my spirit in view of the fearfully 
imperilled condition into which our beloved Church has already 
been brought by the persistent inculcation of these most unauthor- 
ized speculations. 

§ 16. The relation which Romans v. 12-21 sustains to the 

WHOLE SUBJECT CONSIDERED, TOGETHER WITH THE EARLY ChURCH 

Conception of the Covenant. 

The Princeton Professor, supposing, for reasons which have as 
yet never come sufficiently into the clear, that the gratuitous im- 
putation of sin is the doctrine of the Calvinistic Church, claims 
that this doctrine is directly taught in Romans v. 12—21. In view 
of this claim, therefore, the passage is entitled to and should re- 
ceive a thorough consideration. In all his lucubrations on impu- 
tation, and especially in his Theology, he has repeatedly introduced 
it, and frequently with extended remarks as to its meaning; and he 
finds in it not only a plain presentation of the existing analogy 
between the first and second Adam — the one introducing sin and 
death, and the other righteousness and life (as the Church has al- 
ways stated in her exposition of the passage), but he likewise, as 
above remarked, strenuously insists that this analogy, if we would 
regard it as complete, must likewise include amongst the points of 
-resemblance and comparison the mode in which both sin and right- 
eousness are communicated from the first and second Adam to 
their respective seed, to wit : that as the righteousness of Christ is 
communicated to riis seed gratuitously, or without any subjective 
desert on their part, so the guilt of Adam's personal sin, or pecca- 
tum alienum, is communicated to his seed gratuitously, and with- 
out any demerit on their part ; otherwise, says he, the whole anal- 
ogy fails. And he claims, moreover, that almost every old Calvin - 
ist that ever wrote concurs with him in this representation. 2 

1 Turrettin in his De Satisfactione, Parte Till., § 10, has some impressive 
remarks on this same subject, to which we beg leave to refer our readers. 

2 See his Theology, for example, in Vol. I., pp. 26, 27, and Vol. II., pp. 
187-192, and 551, 552. Also his commentary on the passage, especially the 
revised edition. Also the Princeton Essays, first series, pp. 171-174, 176, 177. 
And likewise the Princeton Review for I860, pp. 339-341, 368, and 763-764. 



180 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



If this tremendous doctrine, that God may, without regard to its 
own agency or concurrence, charge soul-destroying guilt upon a 
rational, accountable, and yet guiltless creature be taught in the 
Scriptures, this is absolutely the only place wherein, with the 
slightest shadow of reason, it can be claimed to be found. But 
though it be a doctrine which seems not only irreconcilable to the 
moral consciousness, but which, on the ground of the universally 
conceded canon — causa causae est causa causati — appears, like- 
wise to furnish a logical basis for the extenuation and excuse of all 
actual sin in the posterity of Adam. We offer not these as objec- 
tions to the truth of the doctrine itself, on the supposition that 
there is to be conceded with it a scriptural basis ; for, if but once 
plainly announced by the spirit of truth, it is as worthy of all ac- 
ceptation as if he had announced it in every page of His word. 
But to the claim that it is here announced, it* certainly is not apart 
from the province of due consideration to suggest whether a doc- 
trine which, if conceded to be taught, must essentially modify the 
conception hitherto entertained by the Church universal as to the 
whole system of revealed truth, and (as can be fully demonstrated), 
logically render the most peremptory convictions of our moral na- 
ture pointless and uncertain, might not be expected to have been 
taught in the form of direct dogmatic announcement, rather than 
be left to be merely inferred from a doubtful, or, at most, an in- 
cidental allusion found in the illustration which the apostle had 
selected for the purpose of setting forth to our perishing and help- 
less race the mercy and goodness of God ! "We say doubtful allu- 
sion, because the whole claim that the doctrine is true depends on 
the aforesaid unsustained assumption that the modes, i. e., of our 
justification through Christ and condemnation through Adam, form 
an integral part of the comparison — an assumption which has 
nothing whatever to support it, either in exegesis or in the anal- 
ogy of faith. Take away, then, from the supposed points of 
resemblance the alleged comparison of the modes, and Dr. 
Hodge's whole theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin van- 
ishes, like a ghost, into thin air hopelessly and forever. And since, 
therefore, the leading divines of the past ages (as we have shown), 
in expounding the passage have failed to find the mode mentioned, 
or even alluded to therein, and have emphatically denied that it is 
therein introduced as a part of the comparison of similitudes ; is it 



ROMANS V. 12-21, AND THE COVENANT. 



181 



not, we again ask, somewhat surprising that a doctrine of such 
tremendous sequences, both as regards our conception of God's 
moral perfections and of the relations He sustains to His account- 
able creatures, should have been unrecognized by the Church in 
any age, and be left by the author of revelation to be developed 
only inferentially, from one little corner of an illustration which 
had been introduced for the purpose of setting forth, by various 
points of similitude and dissimilitude, God's boundless love and 
compassion towards man, as exhibited through onr Lord Jesus 
Christ ? And is it really conceivable that Paul should undertake 
to illustrate and establish God's infinite goodness and mercy to the 
race by showing that He charges them gratuitously vjith soul- 
destroying guilt, and then treats them in accordance with the 
charge f 

But it may greatly assist in forming an accurate estimate, not 
only of the scope of the apostle, but of the theology of the early 
churches of the Reformation, both Lutheran and Calvinist, and 
also in forming a just estimate of the misapprehensions into which 
Dr. Hodge has been betrayed respecting their views of the teach- 
ing of this passage, to present just at this point the concept they 
entertained respecting the covenant transaction between God and 
our first parents, and which is so inwrought (so to speak) into the 
very texture of this passage itself. The doctrine, as we shall lay 
it before our readers, was that of the Church anterior to Cocceius 
(1669), who extended and elaborated this earlier conception, and 
whose view became subsequently current to a considerable extent, 
though never formally adopted by the Church herself, many of 
whose divines, as Yitringa and Buddasus, having refused to accept 
it, and others, like Yenema, directly rejecting it, preferring alike 
the more ancient expression of the doctrine. The passages we 
shall cite, moreover, will serve very happily to illustrate the mean- 
ing and force of the various expressions touching the subject in 
our doctrinal symbols. 

In order to do no injustice to the earlier conception itself, we 
shall present it as elaborated by the celebrated Gomarus (of 
Leyden), one of the most thoroughly learned and systematic 
divines of his age, and withal a strong supralapsarian, whose doc- 
trinal theory would therefore naturally lead him to present the 
federal conception (as then entertained) in its most decided form. 



182 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



His presentation of the matter will evince, moreover, the inad- 
missibility of the supposition that their exposition of Romans v. 
12-21, should have included in the analogy thus instituted the 
mode of transmission, — that is, the gratuitous imputation of 
Adam's personal sin to his posterity as the procuring cause of 
their corruption and condemnation, or that such a conception 
should have been at all entertained in their theology. 

In his inaugural address, when entering upon his theological 
professorship in Leyden University, 1 and which is republished as 
prolegomena in the folio edition of his works, 2 he treats upon the 
theme De Fozdere Dei; and after expounding rV*"D of the Old, 
and dtaOrjzrj of the New Testament, he says. " But because the cov- 
enant of God is not of one kind we should first define the term, 
and divide and distinguish its meaning, so that we may be able 
fully to understand what is meant by the New Covenant or Testa- 
ment. The covenant of God, properly speaking, therefore, is a 
mutual obligation of God and men in respect to eternal life, which 
He was to bestow upon them under a certain condition. The 
parts of it are two : the obligation of God, which is eternal life, 
and the obligation of man, which is a stipulated condition pre- 
scribed by God. This covenant, moreover, (porro) is two-fold — 
natural and supernatural. The natural is the covenant of God 
known by nature (natura notum), because God alone has promised 
eternal life, and requires from men the condition of perfect obe- 
dience, and therefore it is rightly called natural, because it is in- 
scribed by nature on the heart of men. (Rom. ii. 14, 15.) And this 
is only in the thing itself ; but in the adjuncts it varies, of which 
in method it is not to be divided, but distinguished. 3 

" For first, and immediately after their creation, it was begun 
by God in Paradise with our first parents and the human race, 
their nature being still upright and in friendship with God ; and 
hence it was possible for mankind both to know and to perform it 
perfectly. And there was added a special test of obedience, that 
is, abstaining from the forbidden tree (Gen. ii. 17), and a token 

1 June 8, 1594. 2 In two volumes, folio. (Amsterdam, 1664.) 

3 Rollock, first Principal of the University of Edinburgh, (who died, in Feb., 
1599,) in the second chapter of his celebrated work, De Vocatione Efficaci, 
(published in 1597,) appears to have largely drawn upon this discourse of 
Gomar. 



EOMANS V. 12-21, AND THE COVENANT. 



183 



(tessera) of the divine promise — the tree of life. Afterwards it 
was repeated by the mediator Moses to the Israelites, and delivered 
upon the two tables of the decalogue, which contains the written 
out (expressam) form of the natural covenant. But now, our na- 
ture being corrupt and hostile to God, it is on that account im- 
perfectly known by men, and impossible for them to perform. 
(Horn. viii. 3.) There was likewise a peculiar test of obedience, 
even the ceremonial yoke and intricate burdens, as Tertullian calls 
them. Thus much for the natural covenant. 

"But the supernatural covenant is a covenant unknown by 
nature, and merely gratuitous, in which God offers to men not 
only Christ and perfect obedience in Him for reconciliation and 
eternal life, but grants also the condition of faith and of re- 
pentance by His Spirit, as the formula of the covenant (Jer. xxxi. 
31, etc.; Heb. viii. 8, etc.), and the discourse of Christ (in Mark 
i. 15) abundantly demonstrate. But we call it supernatural, be- 
cause it is observed and known by us not from learning, nor from 
natural capacity, but by the supernatural grace of the Spirit 
alone." (Page 4.) 

What is here designated as the natural covenant embraces, 
therefore, the whole Edenic transaction on the subject, including 
both the moral and natural relation of Adam to his posterity, as 
the doctrine then was received and taught by the Church. The 
author, then, after expatiating on the supernatural covenant (sub- 
sequently named the covenant of grace), by referring to its an- 
nouncement in Paradise after the fall, its confirmation to Abra- 
ham, and still through the ceremonial law as given by Moses, thus 
continues the discrimination: 

" Besides, it is called the ^ew Covenant or Testament by rea- 
son of the natural covenant or law, as that which succeeds the Old 
Covenant as abrogated by Christ (Jer. xxxi. 31 ; Heb. viii. 8 and 
ix. 15) ; and hence appear the distinctive characteristics and dif- 
ference between them — the natural as the Old, and the super- 
natural as the New, to-wit : first, in the material ; that is, in the 
parts (but in mutual obligation), for the obligation of God in the 
natural and ancient covenant is the bare promise of eternal life. 
In the supernatural and new it is first and foremost that of the 
whole natural covenant; that is, not only of eternal life, but the 
promise of perfect obedience of the law in Christ ; and secondarily, 



184 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



the bestowment of the condition of the New Covenant. But the 
obligation of mankind in the natural covenant is perfect obedience 
to the law, which, after the fall of the human race, consists in 
satisfaction of the violated covenant, and in perfect holiness and 
righteousness. The obligation of men in the New and super- 
natural covenant is faith and repentance. Another distinction be- 
tween these covenants is in the effects. Subsequent to the fall, 
the natural lays open sin and condemnation, and announces that 
we are condemned ; whence it is called the ministry of death, 
and the letter which killeth. (2 Cor. iii. 6, 7.) But the super- 
natural takes away both sin and condemnation, and bestows both 
joy and salvation ; whence it is significantly termed the ministry of 
righteousness, and of the Spirit which giveth life. (2 Cor. vi. 3, 9.) 

" The third difference is in their properties and adjuncts. The 
natural is known by nature, and is a bare covenant, not a testa- 
ment also. But the supernatural is unknown by nature, and is a 
testament on account of the death of the testator Christ." (P. 5.) 

Such, then, is the formulated representation of this doctrine as 
entertained by the Church from the days of Luther and Calvin, 
and which, to a great extent, is based upon Bom. v. 12-21, as 
then understood by the Church, as may, for example, be seen by 
Gomar's exposition of it, who says: "Adam by the force of nature 
(vi naturae) communicates his sin to all and each of his natural 
offspring; but Christ communicates Plis righteousness and life to 
each of His renewed." 1 And such, too, is the language of the whole 
Church of the Beformation, — Adam communicates his sin by na- 
tural generation. What, then, becomes of the theory of Dr. Hodge, 
that it is communicated solely by a forensic imputation ? Of course 
Adam could not thus communicate it ; and if it is as Dr. Hodge in- 
sists, the act of God, then Adam does not communicate it at all. 
The notion of a gratuitous imputation of a peccatum alienum,, in 
order to reproduce the guilt and corruption of Adam in a guiltless 
offspring, is a conception of which those truly learned and venerable 
men could find no words sufficient to express their abhorrence. 

But we will cite briefly another expounder, a clarum et venerabile 
nomen likewise. We refer to Bolavius of Basle (1610), who in 
his Theology gives substantially the same exposition of the exist- 
ing view of the Church. We cite his own language, with its some- 
1 Opera, Tom. I., p. 405, col. 1. 



ROMANS V. 12-21, AND THE COVENANT. 



185 



what peculiar orthography. He says : " Fedus inter Deum et 
homines est pactum, quod Deus ultro cum homiiribus iniit, in quo 
hominibus promittit aliquod bonum et eosdem vicissim obstringit 
ut prsestat ea qu?e ab ipsis requirit. 

"Partes ejus duo sunt: Prcnnissio boni alicujus ex parte Dei, et 
stipulatio officii ex paj'le hominis. Nam Deus nobis sponte promit- 
tit bonum aliquod : et rursus a nobis stipulatur officium sibi prse- 
standum. 

" Coeterum fedus hoc vel spirituale est, vel corporate, Fedus 
spirituale, est in quo Deus hominibus spiritualia bona, nempe im- 
mortalitatem et vitam seternam promittit. Estque duplex ; fedus 
operum vel fedus graticz. 

" Fedus operum est in quo Deus promittit vitam geternam homini 
omnibus numeris perfectam Legi operum obedientiam prsestanti, 
annexa comminatione mortis seternee si perfectam obedientiam non 
prsestiterit. Fedus operum dicitur etisun, fedus naturale, quia in 
creatione prima a Deo cum hominibus initum, et quia continetur 
in lege qua natura hominibus nota est. Hoc fedus pepigit Deus 
ititio cum primis hominibus Adamo et Eva in statu primseve in- 
tegritatis. (Gen. ii. v. IT.) ' De fructu arboris scientiae boni et 
mali, de isto ne comedas,' etc. 

" Ab hoc federe a creatione excidit homo per inobedientiam, et 
fedifragus et mendax evasit. Factusque et obnoxius utrique morti 
tarn spirituali, quam corporali. Idem fedus repetivit Deus cum 
populo Israelitico per Mosen," etc. 1 

Such being the views of this great theologian, he of course ex- 
plains Romans v. accordingly. After remarking that Bellarmin 
deceives himself in his exposition of the analogy contained therein, 
since Paid "does not compare the modes by which we are in our- 
selves either sinners or righteous, but the efficient causes whereby 
we become sinners or righteous before God," he adds, " For he says,, 
that we are constituted sinners by the disobedience of the one 
man ; that is, the disobedience of Adam is the efficient cause by 
which all who are naturally descended are made sinners, that is,, 
transgressors." And then, after refuting the Pelagian objec- 
tion, that the disobedience of Adam is not imputed to us, he asks, 
" How are we constituted sinners ? — not certainly per fonnalem in- 

1 See his Syntagma Theologice Gliristianw, lib. VI., cap. 33, page 1445 r 
(Hauoviae, 1624.) 



186 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

hwrentem. For first, that transgression of the divine interdict did 
not inhere in us in actio subjectively, formally, habitually, or after 
the manner of a habit (habitualiter, seu per modum habitus) ; for 
we did not in act commit that disobedience, because as yet we did 
not exist in act, but only potentially (dwdtxet) in the loins of Adam 
as our root. We are not, therefore, constituted sinners by an ac- 
tual or habitual inhering of this first disobedience as if we our- 
selves had committed it — had transgressed the divine interdict and 
eaten the forbidden fruit. This is what Paul affirms in Romans 
v. 12, that we all sinned in Adam, that is to say, originally, as 
Augustine rightly explains." 1 

Here, then, are clearly brought to view the early Calvinistic 
conception of this federal transaction, and of the doctrine taught 
in Romans v. 12-21. !N"o attempt is made to distinguish between 
the natural and federal relation of Adam to his posterity in any 
such way as Dr. Hodge insists upon as fundamental to our theo- 
logy, and much less is any preference assigned to the federal over 
the natural relation. Both relations alike are equally recognized 
as associating us by participation with the first sin, and so, as the 
ground of the imputation of the first transgression, and the modes 
of the conveyance of sin and righteousness, are not included as 
points of comparison in the apostolic analogy. The imputation 
of the first sin is not that of a jpeccatum alienum, but of our own 
subjective ill-desert, contracted not merely through or on account 
of, but in our first parents ; we sinned when they sinned ; or, as 
Polanus himself elsewhere expresses it, " The first disobedience 
exists not in us as its authors, because we have not by act sinned 
in Adam, seeing that as yet we did not exist in act. We sinned, 
therefore, only originally, as Augustine is accustomed to speak ; 
that is, we sinned in actual will (voluntate actuali) in Adam, his will 
heing ours. As far as Adam willed, so far are we accounted to have 
willed. But Adam knowingly and willingly sinned. We, there- 
fore, in him, and by that will of his (eaque ejus voluntate), both 
sinned and willed to sin." 2 Thus our own subjective guilt in the 
fall is recognized as the explanatory principle ; and hence, as the 
Church has always taught, the disobedient act of Adam himself 

1 See his Syntagma Theologiai Qliristiance, lib. II., cap. 21, page 517, (Han- 
■ovise, 1624). 

2 Ibid., lib. VI., cap. 36, page 1473. 



ROMAN'S V. 12-21, AND THE COVENANT. 



18T 



could be ours only by a forensic decision, while our participation in 
the sin of that act is immediately imputed to us as our own offence. 

In the early Lutheran church likewise, the same conception, 
though not so systematically elaborated, is found. The views of 
Luther are presented with sufficient clearness in his Commentary 
on Genesis ii. 17. For instance, in a passage already cited, 1 he 
evinces a thorough mastery of the whole theme in its various re- 
lations to the system of divine truth as announced in the Scrip- 
tures, and in the light of it thus delineates and rejects the scheme 
which Dr. Hodge has been inculcating; "and it seems to me that 
there are in our own day also some who are deceived with this 
argument. For they so speak of original sin (native corruption) 
as if it were not a crime, but only a punishment (ac si non culpa 
sed tantum poena.) As Erasmus likewise somewhere argues in 
express terms, that 'original sin is a punishment inflicted on our 
first parents, which we, their posterity, are compelled to suffer on 
account of another's crime without any subjective ill-desert of their 
own (propter alienam culpam sine nostro merito) ; as an illegiti- 
mate child is obliged to endure the shame arising, not from his own 
fault, but from that of his mother; for how could he have sinned 
who as yet did not exist 1 These things may be flattering to reason, 
but they are fall of impiety and blasphemy And, then, as evincive 
of his estimate of the vital importance of the true doctrine of orig- 
inal sin, he, in column two of the same page, in referring to the 
Antinomian argument that the righteous have no need of the law, 
says : "And by this very argument Satan makes a mighty effort to 
nullify original sin ; and this would be to deny the passion and res- 
urrection of Christ." Then follows on the next page the other pas- 
sage we have cited in § 13, B. No. 1, above, which, if the reader 
will here consult, he may obtain a clear and comprehensive view of 
the sentiments of this illustrious Reformer on the topic before us. 

As set forth by Flacius (1575) in his Clavis, 2 however, no 
doubt can be entertained as to the early conception of the Lu- 
theran church in regard to the covenant. For though he therein 
alleges that " Fcedus significat autem plerumque pactionem quam 
Deus cum genere human o iniit" (page 313), and speaks as Gomar 
and Polanus do of the covenant with Abraham, and also as re- 

1 See § 13, B. No. 1, supra. 

* Vide sub voce Fgedus, Opp. Tom. I. (Leipsic, 1719.) 



188 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



affirmed through Moses to Israel, and still further of the covenant 
through Christ, and illustrated His definition by many appropriate 
references to the usus loquendi of the sacred writers, he makes 
not the slightest allusion that I have been able to discover to any 
application of the term to the Edenic transaction referred to in 
Gen. ii. 16, 17, though he strongly and almost fiercely contends 
for the imputation of the Adamic sin. He says : " Sic enim nostra 
injustia Christo imputatur ; sic nos rei sumus ob Adami lapsum, 
seu ob illud-ipsum ejus actuale peccatum." (Page 439.) 

Our readers will not suppose that our design in these and in our 
previous references is to prove, by human authority, a doctrine of 
our holy religion to be true (which would be a preposterous pro- 
cedure), for the question as to its truth is in no sense the issue in- 
volved in this inquiry. Our aim is simply to determine by the 
facts in the case whether Dr. Hodge has been inculcating, as he 
claims to have been, the actual or recognized doctrine of the 
Church, or has, on the contrary, essentially and fundamentally de- 
parted therefrom. But as we now pass on from the present topic, 
it will be highly proper to call the attention of our readers to the 
fact fully exhibited in this section, that the views of the covenant 
as entertained by the Reformers wholly forbid the supposition 
that Adam's posterity could be chargeable with the crime of 
having violated that covenant, while they really sustained no 
causal relation whatever to that violation. That is, in other 
words, that the Adamic sin could not be justly and morally their 
own, or be as such charged upon them, when they had no agency 
whatever in its perpetration and when the act referred to is, there- 
fore^ in no sense the act of those to whom it is imputed, except on 
the ground that it is forensically imputed to them. The principle 
itself need not be now dwelt upon ; and we advert to the subject 
merely to call attention to the fact (in its direct relation to the 
inquiry) that the whole church of the Reformation denied that 
the first sin was merely Adam's personal sin, and, as our previous 
citations have abundantly shown, based the justice of the imputa- 
tion of that sin to his posterity on the ground that they had par- 
ticipated therein. No subsequent theory of covenants, or of repre- 
sentation, therefore, can either neutralize or change this broad and 
incontrovertible truth. They were punished, as were Adam and 
Eve, not for any already existing depravity, hut for their sin ; they 



THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 189 

had "all sinned" And such has ever been the doctrine of the 
Church. 

§ 17. The Position and Point of the Apostle's Argument (in 
Romans v. 12-21), as Understood and Affirmed by the Di- 
vines of the Reformation. 

"Whether the analogy in Romans v. includes, as points of com- 
parison, the modes in which sin, on the one hand, or righteousness 
•on the other, is communicated from either the first or the second 
Adam to their respective seed, is a point of fundamental interest 
in this inquiry, as the entire structure of Dr. Hodge's theory rests 
upon his assumption that such is the fact. But at the same time, 
however, he does not even pretend to allege that any thorough 
grammatical exegesis of the passage requires the modes of trans- 
mission to be regarded as points of resemblance, for nothing what- 
ever can be offered to sustain such an assumption. Even Marck 
and De Moor (who at the same time affirm that our actual guilt 
renders us deserving of the imputation), in regard to the mode as 
referred to, have not claimed a grammatical basis for the assertion, 
and are obliged to content themselves with the mere rhetorical 
standpoint, that if the mode be not included the analogy fails 
(which Dr. Hodge repeats, though rejecting their admission of our 
subjective guilt.) They do not, indeed, explain hoiv or ivhy it 
must fail in such contingency, and neither does Dr. Hodge conde- 
scend to enlighten us on the point ; but having asserted it in the 
very face of the great mass of the churches of the Reformation, 
who, as we shall see, had been teaching exactly the contrary, they 
tacitly, but in a manner very nattering to the sagacity of their 
readers, asume that that sagacity will, of course, render any such 
explanation supererogatory. As Dr. Hodge, however, has, as 
already illustrated, carried his theory of imputation far beyond all 
recognized limits in our theology, 1 so in his assertion of this 

1 This has been unhesitatingly conceded in page 789 of The Presbyterian 
Quarterly and Princeton Beview for 1872, in an article (already referred to) 
signed " L. H. A.," who represents Dr. Hodge's Theology as carrying for- 
ward "the strength of the Calvinistic system, especially of that style of re- 
formed theology known as the federal or representative system." Our pre- 
vious references to the Reformed theology, however, convict this remark of an 
attempt to theologize without the requisite information to do it intelligently. 
•Calvinistic theolgy is not " carried forward" by being abandoned for the So- 



190 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



unsustained assumption, his positiveness is greatly in excess of 
theirs. For the imputation for which he contends is not only un- 
authorized in Calvinistic theology, but contrary to the expressed 
dogmatic utterances of the church from Augustine until our own 
day. We have already shown how the principle itself has always 
been regarded by our approved divines wherever they had occasion 
to revert to the theme. And we now affirm that Dr. Hodge can- 
not adduce a single instance of a representative theologian of the 
Church who has ever taught his theory and exegesis of the pas- 
sage before us. The subjoined are a few of the statements by 
which he endeavors to show that the passage does support it, and 
to the consideration of which we ask the careful attention of our 
readers: " The scope of the passage is to illustrate the doctrine of 
justification as the ground of the righteousness of Christ, by a 
reference to the condemnation of men for the sin of Adam. The 
analogy is destroyed, and the point of comparison fails if anything 
in us be assumed on the ground of the infliction of the penal evils 
of which the apostle is here speaking." 1 So, too, in his Theology : 
" Not only, however, does the comparison which the apostle makes 
between Adam and Christ lead to the conclusion that as all are 
condemned for the sin of one, so all are saved by the righteous- 
ness of the other, those only excepted whom the scriptures ex- 
cept." 2 Again: a The parallel is destroyed, the doctrine and 
argument of the apostle overturned, if it be denied that the sin 
of Adam, as antecedent to any sin or sinfulness of our own, is the 
ground of our condemnation." 3 " There is a causal relation between 
the sin of Adam and the condemnation and sinfulness of his pos- 
terity." 4 All this, however, is piling one assumption upon another, 
to wit : " that the apostles, in order to show that God's mercy is 
perfectly gratuitous in justifying the penitent ungodly, must nec- 
essarily affirm likewise that his sentence of condemnation must like- 

cinian scheme of a mere forensic imputation. And it is truly painful to see 
the time-honored phrase "federal or representative system," as employed in 
our theology, thus prostituted to designate a scheme which is as opposite 
thereto as light is to darkness. Let all such abuse of the language be utterly 
and always discountenanced. Dr. Hodge's scheme throughout is one merely 
of coerced or arbitrary representation. The Calvinistic is that Adam and his 
posterity all were parties on the human side of the covenant. 

1 Commentary on Romans, v. 12, and repeated likewise in vs. 15, 18 19. 

2 Vol. I., pp. 26, 27. 3 Ibid, Vol. II., pp. 212-213. 4 Ibid., p. 215. 



THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. 



191 



wise be gratuitous, and bear no relation to the subjective demerit 
of the condemned. But the only refutation that an assertion so ut- 
terly unauthorized and absurd requires, is a bare denial. It is not 
true that because God extends mercy gratuitously to the penitent 
believing sinner, he therefore inflicts vengeance gratuitously upon 
the innocent. Paul has in no way whatever taught any such notion.. 

The apostle having previously set forth the ruined and help- 
less condition of our race, and announced the way of deliverance 
through our Lord Jesus Christ, and having shown, moreover, that 
they who accept the proffer of mercy obtain peace with God, 
being thus reconciled to Him, and have free access to Him 
through Jesus Christ, next proceeds to present, in a condensed 
and most impressive form, a view of the points which his argu- 
ment thus far had elicited, and to show their relation to the whole 
scheme of redemption. He had been unfolding the awful truth that 
the Gentile world, and along with it the Jews, were all under sin — 
in a guilty, condemned and hopeless state — but as yet had said 
nothing of the first fall as the procuring cause of all this woe, nor 
of the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity. The fact that 
they all alike were under sin (a fact to the truth of which their 
own consciences bare witness) was plainly stated, and there left 
as undisputed and indisputable. He had, as stated above, also an- 
nounced salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, and illustrated 
the method by which we may avail ourselves of the proffered 
mercy, declaring that God would receive and justify, through 
Jesus, all who believingly accept that proffer, and now, in summing 
up and illustrating the argument, he introduces the first Adam — 
the procuring cause of our fall and misery — and, after remarking 
that he was a type of Him who was to come, to-wit : Christ, shows 
how Christ, sustaining the relation of a second Adam, was the 
procuring cause of our deliverance and salvation ; and in dwelling 
on this analogy shows that, as we were constituted sinners by the 
disobedience of the one— we all having sinned in and with him^- 
so we are constituted righteous by the obedience of the other, who, 
by his obedience, had effected the reconciliation of which (in verse 
11) he had just spoken. 1 So that, as by the one offence (justice de- 

1 Ka-aXXay-qv is here properly reconciliation, though in our version ren- 
dered atonement, which word in modern English usage has become so changed 
from its meaning in the time of our translators as now to seem incongruous. 



192 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



rnanding our punishment), the judgment unto condemnation was 
pronounced against us, so by the one righteousness the free gift 
came upon all unto justification of life. 

Such, in brief outline, is the argument. On what ground, then, 
are we to suppose that the analogy thus presented requires a com- 
parison between the mode in which the judgment unto condemna- 
tion is inflicted, and that in which the free gift of righteousness 
is bestowed ? Does not the simple fact that the one is inflicted 
on the race as the punishment of their sin, and the other bestowed 
as the free gift of mercy delivering from all sin ano). condemnation, 
render the whole argument sufficiently obvious and easily under- 
stood? Then, further, can it really amount to anything, except 
to perplex the argument of the apostle, to add that the sentence 
of condemnation resembles the sentence of acquittal ? They cer- 
tainly cannot be compared as points of similarity, except so far as 
the righteous Judge has pronounced them; and this surely does 
not infer a similarity, either between the sentences themselves or 
the form of their announcement ; for the judgment comes upon 
the race for the one offence in which we all participated, while, 
in the other case, the free gift, which is more than a sentence of 
mere acquittal, comes to us gratuitously ; for in no sense could we 
merit that. Where, then, is to be found this alleged ground for 
comparison ? In the former, the one offence, on account of our 
participation therein {l<p d> xdvres tf^aprov), is charged upon us for 
condemnation, and is, therefore, in no sense a gratuitous imputa- 
tion. In the latter, the one righteousness, wherein we did not 
participate, is gratuitously bestowed upon us for justification. And 
these things were, from the preceding argument of the apostle, 
sufficiently plain, and* needed not to be formally presented in the 
analogy, even as points of antithesis, the mere statement of the 
facts being sufficient. But as respects their being points of simili- 
tude, and being compared as such in the manner asserted and in- 
sisted on by Dr. Hodge; there is nothing in the passage even to 

In their time, however, it was synonymous with reconciliation, and used in- 
terchangeably with it, an instance or two will illustrate this: Shakespeare, 
for example, in As you like it, says, " Then is there mirth in heaven, when 
earthly things made even, atone together;" in Richard II., "Since we cannot 
atone you, we shall see;" in Henry IV., "If we do now make our atonement 
well ;" in Cymbeline, " I was glad I did atone my countrymen and you." 



THE APOSTLE' S ARGUMENT. 



193 



countenance the idea, nor lias the Church herself ever entertained 
such a conception. 

But as the Doctor claims that they really are points of simili- 
tude and comparison, let us here briefly enquire what he proposes to 
gain by such an assumption. We have above shown that in the 
analogy the two points — the one relating to justice and the other 
to mercy — may, either or both of them, be unduly extended, un- 
less the scope of the apostle be regarded, as Turrettin (Loco 16, 
Qusest. 2, § 19, and Qua3st, 3, § 15,) and De Moor (ut supra) and 
others have carefully stated, though at the same time holding that 
the fact of an imputation in both cases is implied. But Dr. Hodge, 
in this his assumption, does not propose, as some have done, to 
show that as the judgment unto condemnation is an act of puni- 
tive justice for subjective ill-desert, therefore the justification must 
likewise be regarded as flawing to us for subjective desert ; but 
has chosen the other members of the antithesis as his starting 
point, and as the free gift is a gratuitous bestowment, and in no 
way dependent on our subjective desert, so in like manner must 
the condemnatory sentence be a free and gratuitous bestowment ! 
It is simply to incorporate with evangelical theology this astound- 
ing and monstrous conception, that the analogy must be here 
pressed into a formal recognition of the modes, not as points of 
antithesis, which the divines of the Reformation insist that they 
are, but as points of similitude ! And Dr. Hodge peremptorily 
affirms, that unless this be granted the whole analogy fails : " the 
apostle's argument is overturned," and we "take sides with the, 
Jews against him." 1 So that, according to this exposition, w T e are 
to conclude that, inasmuch us the Most High bestows blessings 
and favors gratuitously, He therefore gratuitously inflicts moral 
corruption upon his innocent creatures, and then visits them with 
the exactions of His punitive or avenging justice on account of that 
corruption. It would certainly seem, a priori, that the mere ut- 
terance or statement of such a conception must, in the view of all 
who truly love and fear God, suffice for its refutation and rejec- 
tion. The topic is suggestive of themes for very serious reflection, 
and we refer to a single one before passing to our next point. 

The mercy here adverted to by Paul as the free gift of God is, 
as we have seen, a purely gratuitous bestowment upon the needy 

1 See Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 341, 344, 345. 
13 



194 ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

but penitent believer. It is entirely the work of God, therefore,, 
who confessedly takes pleasure in all his works and ways, (Ps. civ. 
31,) and can with complacency contemplate this and its happy re- 
sults as His own work. Now the theory of Dr. Hodge makes the 
condemnatory sentence of Adam's guiltless posterity (for such he 
of necessity affirms them to be antecedent to that sentence) equally 
gratuitous, equally the work of God, who, as He thus clothes with 
this fearful guilt the innocent creature, hands him over into an 
indescribably dreadful condition of spiritual death and misery > 
and of abiding enmity to holiness and to Himself, and to all His 
works and ways. And this, agreeably to the theory in question, 
is as fully and simply His own work as is the other. Will Dr. 
Hodge, then, or any who may have adopted this theory, undertake 
to allege that our good and gracious God, who takes no pleasure 
in the death even of the sinner, can with complacency contemplate 
such a work as this, with all its assured and eternal hostility to> 
Himself ? Let the question be fairly met and answered, and let 
there be no attempted evasion to the effect that the exhibition of 
wrath and indignation against sinners is always unpleasant to the 
Divine nature, and is His strange work, and the like ; for even 
admitting this in its fullest extent, it meets not the case. The 
question here pertains not to shiners, but (as Dr. Hodge constantly 
affirms) to the sinless. It relates to the grounds for the exhibition 
of this wrath against those who were not sinners, but subjectively 
guiltless or innocent of all sin, and free from all ill-desert, and 
from any subjective blame whatsoever. And, moreover, it was 
the exhibition of this very wrath against them which, subsequent 
to its infliction, brought them out of their guiltless state into a 
state of guilt and misery, and of spiritual death. We ask, them 
again, w T ill Dr. Hodge, or any who accept his views, venture to 
affirm that God could with complacency contemplate as His own 
such a work, as He confessedly can His work of renewing, and 
justifying, and saving the redeemed % Their theory demands an 
affirmative response to the inquiry, for a negative will be tanta- 
mount to an admission that the theory itself is false. 

The science of hermeneutics, therefore, can furnish no relief in 
the extremity to which this theory finds itself reduced in the 
attempt to constitute gratuitous justification and merited con- 
demnation points of resemblance and comparison in this analogy.. 



THE APOSTLE ? S ABGUMENT. 



195 



And to achieve such result, while zplfia here retains its relation 
to s:> xa-dxpi/xa, is simply impossible ; for a sentence unto condem- 
nation can never be other than antithetical to the bestowment of 
a free and gracious gift. But let us proceed to the analyses of 
the argument in Romans v. 12-21, as presented by the divines of 
the Reformation. Dr. Hodge has labored very assiduously to 
show that they so explained the passage as to inculcate his theory, 
and it will be well, therefore, to allow them an audience, that they 
may speak for themselves. 

The leading thought of the passage, and that with which it is 
chiefly occupied, relates to the analogy between the first and 
second Adam ; in reference to which, and in the sense in which he 
explains it, Dr. Hodge asserts that "this analogy is asserted by 
almost every old Calcinist that ever wrote ; that he "might go on 
for a month" making quotations from their writings in confirmation 
of the views which he advocates respecting it ; and that K nothing 
can be plainer than that these men considered the cases as per- 
fectly parallel as to the point, — viz.: the nature of imputation." 1 

In my former essay I called his attention to the fact that this 
whole representation was inaccurate, and furnished a superabun- 
dance of proof in confirmation of the statement. 2 But not being 
prepared to abandon the theory he had erected upon it, he has 
chosen the alternative of persisting therein, and has since then re- 
affirmed substantially all his previous assertions. In his Theology 
he says: "Its <milt (7. <?., of Adam's sin) does not belong to us 
personally. It is imputed to us as something not our own, — a 
peccatum alien um, — and the penalty of it, the forfeiture of the 
divine favor, the loss of original righteousness, and spiritual death, 
are its sad consequences. Just as the righteousness of Christ is 
not our own, but is imputed to us, and we have a title in justice 
on the ground of that righteousness, if we accept and trust it, to 
all the benefits of redemption." 3 

This method of procedure, summary as it appears, does not, 
however, seem to satisfy the Doctor, who, in order to carry his 
point, assails (as is shown in Section 8, above) the received doc- 
trine as inconsistent with philosophy, common sense, and the 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 173. 

2 Danville Review for 1862. pp. 517-540. 

3 Theology, Vol. II., p. 225. Also pp. 202, 203, 212, 213, 21G. 



196 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



word of God. And in his late work lie throws out occasionally, 
as if incidentally, what is plainly intended to justify such utter- 
ances. For example, in treating the question " What is impos- 
sible?" he says: " We have a right to reject as untrue whatever 
it is impossible that God should require us to believe. He can no 
more require us to believe what is absurd than to do what is 
wrong." 1 I should deeply regret doing any injustice to the 
writer in interpreting this remark, but certainly its true bearing 
and animus must be regarded as apparent in his aforesaid proscrip- 
tion of the Church doctrine that we participated in the Adamic 
sin. Is this inference avoidable ? If not, then we are brought to 
the further conclusion that, pressed by the exigencies of his theory, 
he has not only misstated the doctrine of the Church, but by a 
broad and clear implication has justified the Rationalistic principle 
that we are entitled to form an a priori judgment as to what may 
be regarded as "absurd" in matters purely of faith or revelation, 
and then reject or refuse to believe whatever may in our estima- 
tion come under that category, since " God can no more require 
of us to believe what is absurd than to do what is wrong." In- 
stead, however, of inculcating upon our ministry such a sentiment, 
which is the very foundation stone upon which the superstructure 
of both English and German Rationalism has been reared, why 
could not Dr. Hodge claim, as the Church has ever claimed, that 
as the word of God can teach nothing absurd, so we are reveren- 
tially to bow to its authority in all its utterances, lead where they 
may, and however much our reason or philosophy might reluctate 
or be disposed to reject them as absurd? 2 For example: The 
divine word, in the passage before us, affirms expressly, and with- 
out the slightest ambiguity, that in the first sin we all sinned, and 
through that sin were constituted sinners. Dr. Hodge alleges that 
this, if literally taken, is absurd, and thereupon denounces the 
doctrine of participation, and insists that djuaprdveiv must be under- 
stood either in a passive or a putative sense, — in neither of which 
is the word ever employed. Though the Spirit of God has affirmed 
the statement, and though the uniform usage of the terms dpapravstv 

1 Theology, Vol. I., pp. 51, 52. 
. 2 See Lord Bacon's Novum Organum, lib. I., §§ 41, 42, Works, Vol. II., p. 
435, (London, 1838) ; and also his Advancement of Learning , Book II., Works, 
Vol. I., p. 34. 



THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. THE ANALYSES. 197 

and &rjLapTi0?.6$ shows how that statement is to be understood, the 
proposition thus affirmed is " unthinkable/'" impossible, and non- 
sensical, and therefore God does not require that we believe it any 
more than He would require us to do what is wrong. But the 
point must recur in the sequel. 

It has been already remarked that the argument of the apostle 
in the paragraph before us is concerned only with the headship 
of Adam and of Christ, and with the main fact that, as the one 
brought death, so the other brought life to their respective seed; 
and further, that the modes in which life and death are conveyed 
form no part of the comparison. That such was, from the first, 
the doctrine of the Caivinistic church is apparent from our cita- 
tions in Section 16 above. But we shall now proceed to establish 
it bv direct testimony, and in doing this shall lay before our 
readers the analyses of the argument by a few of her representa- 
tive divines, as also their own views of the point in question. Our 
readers, upon a resurvey of the whole discussion, will not, we are 
assured, suppose that we have bestowed upon the consideration of 
this vital point more attention than the necessity of the case re- 
quires. We commence with the analysis of— 

1. Gomasus, of Leyden, who, after remarking that the passage 
begins with a reference to the previous part of the chapter, pro- 
ceeds as follows: "Atque ita ad reconciliation em et pacem cum 
Deo, de qua initio capitis actum est, eleganter redit, et id alteram 
hujus capitis partem viam sibi sternit. Qua parte doetrinam de 
justificatione et reconciliatione nostri cum Deo, per Christum 
illustrat, amplificat ac probat, comparatione Adami et Christi 
tanqnam typi et archetypi, quam ex superioribus concludit. 

" Comparatio autem est gemma, videlicet similitudinis et dis- 
similitudinis : et utraque constat propositione et redditione. 

"Prior comparatio continetur. v. 12, 13, 14, siniilitudo autem 
*i rem intueamnr, consistit in natura et effectis duobis. In natura, 
quod utraque homo : in effectis : primiim, quod uterque suos habet 
posteros et multitudinem, cujus principium et caput est : deinde quod 
uterque habet aliquid, quod, propageret ad omnes et solos posteros. 
Quemadmodum autem simile non est idem, sed nonnihil etiam 
habet diversi : ita etiam hoc in loco apparet : Adam avdptoxog homo 
tantum: sed Christus etiam films Dei eedvdpioizo^ Deus-homo. 
Adamus posteros habet et hseredes omnes homines, secundum 



198 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



carnem, naturse vi genitos : Christus vero electos omnes ac fideles, 
supernaturali gratia regenitos : ille natorum : hie renatorum prin- 
cipium est. Adamus peccati et mortis, in hominibus fons est : 
Christus vero justitise et vitse author. Adamus pcccatum suum 
omnibus et solis natis suis, vi naturae, ; Christus vero justitiam et 
vitam omnibus et solis renatis suis communicat." 1 

The terse brevity and force of this beautiful analysis can scarcely 
be transferred into English, and we therefore give it to the reader 
in the language of the author. The portions which we have itali- 
cised, and which present his views in a way not to be mistaken 
in their relation to our main subject, are his usual expressions in 
view of it. For example, in Tom. II., page 44, Thesis 50, in re- 
ferring to the sin of Adam, he says, " Ac se suosque posteros gen- 
erandos constituit peccatores ;" and in Thesis 57, "Alteram malum 
quod prreter peccatum, a primo Adamo posteris ipsius communi- 
catum, est stipendum peccati, mors prima et secunda." On this 
whole subject he is, as he claims to be, Angustinian. But to re- 
( turn. 

After presenting the above analysis, and remarking that the 
protasis of this comparison has two parts, " the guilt of the sin of 
Adam, and the corruption of nature," he adds, " The first is tran- 
sient and actual, even the fall of Adam, which is ours by a just 
imputation, because as he at the same time stood both for himself 

and for us, so he sinned Which two (sin and spiritual 

death) he (the apostle) shows to be propagated from him to all 
men naturally begotten ; death, indeed, when he says, and so — 
that is, by the fall of Adam death passed upon all men ; but sin 
when he adds, in whom all sinned." 

He then, referring to the dissimilitudes in the analogy, classes 
therewith the very poi?it ivhich Dr. Hodge has so peremptorily 
claimed, not only as a point of similitude, but as one the recogni- 
tion of ivhich is essential to the very existence of the analogy itself. 
He says : " But the similitude is placed in the causes and effects. 
And first in the causes, because Adam communicates his fall and 
death to his posterity by nature ; Christ communicates His right- 
eousness and life by grace and gift ; which dissimilarity, indeed, 
is not expressly unfolded, but covertly intimated by the words 
grace and gift, which are in antithesis to fall. (Dissimilitudo 

1 Analytic. Explicat. Epist. ad Eomanos. Opp. Tom. I., page 405. 



THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. THE ANALYSES. 



199 



autem statuitur in causis et effectis. Ac primiim in causis, quod 
Adamus suum lapsum et mortem comm,unicat posteris suis natura; 
Christus suam justitiam et vitan: gratia et dono. Quae quidem 
dissimilitudo non explicatur aperte sed operte innuitur, vocibus, 
gratice et doni, qu.se lapsui opponuntur.") 

Such is the teaching of Gomar and of the early Church in re- 
gard to the doctrine of the apostle here. And yet Dr. Hodge 
asserts that they taught that the mode forms an essential and in- 
dispensable 'part of the comparison ; while in their view the com- 
parison would indeed fail if the analogy included the mode} 

2. Polanus takes precisely the same ground as to the exclusion 
of the mode from the points of comparison, as may be seen by the 
citation from his Theology in § 16, above. 

3. Wall,eus, in chapter Till, of his Reply to Corvinus, pre- 
sents the following analysis of the argument. Referring to the 
positions of Molinseus, which Corvinus is endeavoring to enervate, 
he says : " The first is taken from Romans v., which is properly 
the sedes of the subject-matter ; for although we may admit that 
it was the purpose of the apostle to compare the lirst and second 
Adam, and oppose to the guilt and condemnation propagated from 
Adam to all his natural offspring the benefit of righteousness and 
life which is derived to us from Christ, yet, as righteousness and 
life are not communicated through Christ except to those who be- 
lieve and are renewed by the Holy Spirit, so the guilt of the first 
sin does not pass, unless by natural generation , to a posterity de- 
filed and corrupted, as Augustine rightly urges, (De Peccat. Merit., 
lib. L, cap. VIII.)." Then, after citing the words of Augustine, 
he thus continues: "Whence the apostle, in verse 12, not only 
says that all sinned in him, which should be referred to imputa- 
tion, but also, 'By one man sin entered into the world, and death 
by sin,' which should be wholly understood of a reed defilement 
of nature (de reali iniquinatione naturae), as not only the word 
siffipyseOac, — to enter or invade, — evinces, but also the term death, 
associated with the same word ; unless they (the Arminians) should 
thifik that death passes to us only through imputed sin, and not 
through that which is really communicated to us," i. <?., by propa- 
gation. Here, too, Dr. Hodge's essential point in the comparison 

1 See in Danville Bevieiv for 1862, p. 526, a further reference to the views 
of this great divine. 



200 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION". 



is rejected from the analogy, and the Arminian notion that death 
passes to us only through a forensic imputation promptly dis- 
carded. The high estimation in which this treatise of "Wallaeus 
was held by his learned cotemporaries may be seen by referring 
to § 13, A., No. 5, above. 

4. Piscator, after presenting a general analysis of the passage 
similar to the foregoing from Gomar, remarks: "But the full 
comparison (plena comparatio) is as follows: As through Adam 
sin has entered to all mankind, and death through sin, because 
that in Adam all have sinned, so through Christ righteousness has 
entered to all that believe, and through righteousness life, because 
that in Christ all who believe have rendered satisfaction for their 
sins." {In locum.) The full comparison, therefore, as then 
understood, included no such point as Dr. Hodge has so proscrip- 
tively affirmed to be essential to the whole analogy. Dr. Twisse 
pronounced Piscator the ablest theologian of his age. 

5. William Ames, of Franequer. 

In his Seiagraphy of a Christian Catechism^. 14, after quoting 
Pom. v. 12, he thus analyzes the paragraph (vs. 12-21) : "the de- 
sign of the apostle in this place is to illustrate that doctrine which 
he had previously taught concerning justification through Jesus 
Christ, to which end he institutes a similitude between this grace 
of our Lord Jesus Christ and the sin of Adam, our first parent. 
The comparison turns upon the force and effects of each. The 
proposition of the comparison is contained in verse 12, the applica- 
tion is afterwards explained by a parenthesis. In this proposition 
Adam is regarded as the cause of a twofold effect, the introduc- 
tion of sin, and the introduction of death. The reason of the 
connection of these effects with the cause is in the last words of 
this verse explained from that mutual participation (conjunctione 
ilia) which cdl had with Adam in the first sin, in whom all sin- 
ned.' 5 1 

6. Pivetus (Andreas), whom Dr. Hodge extols as "the greatest 
theologian of the age," in expounding the analogy, says: "Per- 
haps it might be more to the purpose to consider what others ob- 
ject from Paul (Pom. v. 17, 18), that we are rendered righteous 
in Christ as we were rendered sinners in Adam ; but in Adam we 
have become sinners, not only by imputation, but also inherently, 

1 Christian Catech. Seiagraphia, Dom. III. (Amsterdam, 1635.) 



V 



THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT. THE ANALYSES. 



201 



therefore we thus become righteous in Christ. But I reply that it 
is not true that we have both in Christ and by Christ. For we 
become righteous by the imputation of His righteousness, and day 
by day we are rendered just in ourselves both in habit and in holy 
actions proceeding from the renewal of the Holy Spirit. The 
first we possess perfectly, the second incipiently ; but we look for 

its completion at the end of the present life Yet there is 

nothing in this argument which forbids that we acknowledge the 
necessity of inherent qualities. For it can only be proved that 
in Christ we have righteousness, as we have in Adam unrighteous- 
ness. But there is a comparison of the causes, and not of the 

MODE IN WHICH THK THING IS COMMUNICATED TO US. For the Sill of 

Adam is communicated to us by generation, but the righteousness 
of Christ by imputation. Therefore the apostle does not com- 
pare the modes in which righteousness is received, but the causes, 
effects, and subjects of each. The cause of salvation is the obedi- 
ence of the second Adam, as the cause of condemnation was the 
disobedience of the first. The effects are that the one constitutes- 
us unrighteous as the other righteous," etc. 1 

7. CxlLVIN. 

In the forecited work of Rivetus, he has largely shown (at the 
end of the chapter which contains the section we have quoted) that 
the views of Calvin on this subject concur entirely with his own,, 
and the evidence adduced by him can leave upon no mind even 
the shadow of doubt that this is so. It will suffice to present here, 
however, a single passage from Calvin's note on Rom. v. IT, in 
which he says : " It is worthy of remark that there are two points 
of difference between Christ and Adam concerning which the 
apostle was silent, not because he thought they might be neglected,, 
but because it did not pertain to his present argument to specify 
them. The first is, that by the sin of Adam we are not condemned 
by imputation alone, as though the punishment of a foreign sin 
(alieni peccati poena) may be exacted Tf us ; but we bear his punish- 
ment because we also are guilty of his crime; for because our 
nature is vitiated in him it is bound by the guilt of the iniquity 

1 See Summa Oontrov., Tract. IV., Qusest, 2. Opp. Tom. II., page 156. 
(Genevas, 1644.) This quotation is more fully given, and with the original, 
in the Danville Review for 1862, pp. 517, 518. 



•202 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



before God." Thus is Dr. Hodge's comparison of the modes 
utterly discarded. 

8. Pareus presents with but little variation the same analysis 
as Rivetus and the others, and finds no such point of comparison as 
Dr. Hodge regards as essential to the very existence of the analogy. 
Referring to Rom. v. 12, he says: "For unless the apostle had 
affirmed that all are by nature corrupted and guilty, how could he 
show, as he does, in verses 18, 19, that in Christ there is for all 
a remedy for the criminality and guilt ? It is manifest, therefore, 
that this reason why all die, being brought forward, to-wit: he- 
cause all have sinned, the apostle plainly attributes original sin to 
.all men, Christ only excepted (who descended not from Adam by 
ordinary generation), and that it is truly sin because all have 
truly sinned in Adam (quodque sit vere peccatnm quia omnes 
vere peccaverunt in Adamo)." Thus he effectually disposes of 
the theory of a merely putative sinning in Adam. He repeats 
the same on verse 18, and then on verse 19 says: "By the phrase 
y.are<Trddrj(Tav d/j.aprwAo}, he shows with increased emphasis the de- 
structive force of the disobedience; that it had not only defiled all 
by guilt, but by corruption, making them not only depraved, but 
likewise rendering them sinners habitually ; for in verse 12 he had 
said that all once sinned in Adam, and that hence all were made 
guilty, (vs. 15, 16.) ]N~ow he adds, that they were likewise con- 
stituted sinners; that is, not only that they were polluted by na- 
ture, but vitiated likewise i?i the luhole habit of life, so that they 
-can do nothing but sin. He here, therefore, says more than in 
verse 12, 6 in whom all sinned." 1 " {In locum.) Thus not only is 
the notion of the mode excluded, but the whole exegesis of Dr. 
Hodge rejected. 

9. A. Willets, in his Sixfold Commentarie upon Romans? 
and in treating the points in the comparison is .not sufficiently 
sharp-sighted to discern that w T hich Dr. Hodge so peremptorily in- 
sists upon as essential to its integrity, although in discoursing " of 
the disparitie and unlikeness" he specifies that very point. He 
•says: " The manner how these two things (death by Adam and 
life by Christ) are conveyed are diverse ; Adarrfs sin is transmitted 
by natural propagation, but life and righteousness are conveyed by 
grace." (P. 257.) This author, as we have stated, stood very 

1 Completed in 1610, though not published until 1620. 



THE APOSTLE'S ARGUMENT.- 



. ANALYSES. 



203 



high with his cotemporaries. He is frequently referred to with 
great deference, and cited by Rivetus and other continental divines, 
as by those of his own country, amongst whom Poole praises him 
highly and frequently cites him in his Synopsis Criticorum. 

10. Beza, in his notes on the passage, presents the same view: 
" Paul exhibits two Adams, of whom the former was the type of 
the latter — the type, I say, not because each may be proposed for 
imitation, but on account of the like power of each (vim utriusque 
similem) ; in the former the power of propagating ruin to his 
posterity, in the latter the power of justifying those who were 
his," (vs. 14, 15.) Then, referring to verse 15, he says: "In this 
verse Adam is compared with Christ, and the offence of the for- 
mer with the obedience of the latter, so that it might be under- 
stood what was their respective power of their deriving themselves 
to their respective seed. In verse 16 the power of each is com- 
pared; THAT IS, OF THE FALL OF ADAM PROPAGATED BY NATURE, AND 
OF THE OBEDIENCE OF CHRIST IMPUTED THROUGH GRACE. Ill Vd'Se 

IT the ends of these are compared. In verse 18 the three com- 
parisons are joined together, the ground or common reason of 
which is explained in verse 19." 1 

In introducing this beautiful analysis, and referring to the dis- 
tinction between justification and forgiveness, he had, on verse 
12, said: "But this distinction plainly appears (in the analogy), 
partly, indeed, from the whole comparison of the unrighteousness 
of Adam with the righteousness of Christ, to wit: of the former 
through propagation ; of the latter communicated to us (believers) 
through imputation" And had it been his intention to repu- 
diate and condemn both the theory and assertions of Dr. Hodge 
on the subject, his remarks could not have been more directly to 
the point. And in like manner, all these divines carefully distin- 
guish between the mode of our receiving hereditary depravity 
from Adam {j. e., by natural propagation), and the mode of re- 
ceiving justification through Christ (i. e., by the imputation of 
His righteousness.) The notion of our receiving both by or 
through a merely forensic imputation they rejected in toto, as 
subversive of the whole system of evangelical or Augustinian the- 
ology. 

1 Annotaliones Theod. Bezee in Novum Testarnentuin. (Published by Henry 
Stephens, in 1588.) 



201 



ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



11. Hyperius also, whose excellent commentaries on the ~Zsew 
Testament still retain their high rank with scholars, thus explains 
the passage, and finds the modes of communication to be points 
of disparity or antithesis, and not of comparison. In reference to 
verse 12, he says: " But if we would have the method of the anti- 
thesis, it must be thus stated, to wit: As by the one man, Adam, 
sin entered into the world, and through sin death, and so death has 
passed upon all men, so far as we have all sinned ; so, by one man, 
Christ, righteousness has been brought into the world, and through 
righteousness, life ; and so life has come forth to all men, so far as 
we all have believed." Then, after expatiating hereon, Hyperius 
remarks: "But lest any one should pretend that the comparison 
here instituted should not be thus expressed, it may be observed 
that the apostle, a little further on, explains it when he says:. 
Therefore, as by the offence of one evil was propagated to all men, 
(Propagatum est malum in omnes homines), etc., to the words, 
But, moreover, the law entered," And still further on he remarks : 
" But some one may inquire, what is the formal cause or mode 
whereby the sin of Adam passes to all his posterity, so that even 
infants, who have not [personally] committed actual sins are 
condemned? I answer, that the evil and contagion is derived to all 
the posterity of Adam by propagation alone, (Ipsa sola propaga- 
tione.) For what Adam became after his transgression, so all be- 
came who were afterwards begotten of him." 1 

12. The very learned and profound Lud. de Dieu presents the 
same view as to what constitutes the points of comparison. He 
says: " Apostolos confert (in verse 15), cum peccato hominis gra- 
tiam Dei, etc., Deinde effectus etiam peccati Adami ac gratiaa 
Christi confert; quod inde mors, hinc salus, ad illos manaverit," 
etc. (Cited in Poole's synopsis.) 

13. Chamier, in his discussion with Bellarmin, and referring to 
Horn. v. 12-19, says: "I say, then, that it is certain that cdl men 
were constituted unrighteous by Adam, and that all believers are 
really constituted righteous by Christ. But I deny that this is 
the p)oint which the apostle had under consideration; for his in- 
quiry here is into the grounds of our condemnation and justifica- 
tion ; for although he considers xardzpi l ua as in Adam, yet not as 
peculiar to him, but pertaining' to the whole human race. For the 

1 CoHimentarium in Epistolas Pauli ad locum. (Tiguri, 1582.) 



THE APOSTLE*S ARGUMENT. ANALYSES 



205 



meaning is that when Adam sinned the whole human race was 
condemned or made guilty of disobedience to God ; whence, also, 
this was by Augustine called original sin, the punishment of the 
first sin. Bat hoiv could it be punishment unless that very first 
sin teas imputed?'' ISio voice after Calvin would be more cheer- 
fully regarded by the Reformed Church as uttering her ac- 
knowledged views of doctrine than that of %i the great Qhamier" 
(1622), the sobriquet by which he is still designated, and thus 
decidedly does he disclaim the whole representation that the mode 
forms any part of the comparison in the analogy. 

14. Tjlenus, in his Theology, referring to the general subject, 
says: "Therefore generation itself and tnzep,uaTetr'fid$, is the mode by 
which this evil (original sin) flows forth in the human race, ivho 
also in this mode depend from Adam?' 

Again-: "Kor does the antithesis in Rom. v. 19 explicate the 
mode whereby righteousness may either inhere in or be imputed 
to us ; but the causes, effects and subjects of salvation and damna- 
tion. For as the first Adam is the cause of sin and perdition to 
those who by nature are born of him, so the second Adam is the 
cause of righteousness and salvation to those who, through grace, 
are renewed by His Spirit." 1 

15. F. TuRKETTus", in disputing against the positions which Bel- 
larmin had assumed, presents the same exposition of this analogy, 
and in like manner affirms that the mode forms no part of the 
-comparison. He says: "Nor, if we are constituted unjust and 
guilty through the sin propagated from Adam, ought we to be 
immediately justified through inherent righteousness communi- 
cated to us by Christ through regeneration; for the reason of 
each is very different (diversissima.) And Paul here institutes a 
comparison bet-ween the first and second 1 Adam in the thing, and 
not in the mode of the thing?* This theologian has been steadily 
claimed by Dr. Hodge as endorsing the theory of the gratuitous 
imputation of sin, though he thus utterly and reiteratedly repu- 
pudiates the whole foundation upon which it is based. 

16. Ryissexius, in responding to the argument, that "according 
to Rom. v. 19, we are constituted righteous through Christ, as we 

1 Sjntag. Theol., Parte I., loc. 56, Thes. 31, and Parte IT., loc. Thes. 23. 
(Geneva, 1618.) 

2 Instit. Theol., loco 16, Quaest. 2 § 19,. and Quaes. 3, § 15. 



206 



ORIGINAE SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



were constituted unrighteous through Adam, which was inherently," 
thus remarks: "I reply, Christ is rightly said to constitute us just, 
not through inherent but imputed righteousness, as in chapter iv, 
6. For they are no less constituted just before God who are ab- 
solved from merited punishment on account of the obedience of 
Christ imputed to them, than they who, on account of the dis- 
obedience of Adam, are constituted unrighteous; that is, guilty of 
condemnation and death. Nor if Adam did indeed constitute us 
unjust effectually, through the propagation of inherent vitiosity, 
on account of which we are even guilty of death before God, 
would it likewise follow that Christ constitutes us just through a 
forensic justification at the tribunal of God by inherent righteous- 
ness bestowed on us by Himself, because the scope of the apostle 
does not tend in that direction ; but he aims only to lay open the 
foundation of a common guilt to death, and of a right to life, from 
our union with the first and second Adam as to the thing, although 
the mode is diverse on account of the diversity of the subject" 1 

17. The view of the Lutheran church may be learned from the 
following remarks of Glassius on the subject: "Rom. v. 19, As by 
the disobedience of the one man many were constituted sinners, so 
also (ootw?,) by the disobedience of one shall many be constituted 
righteous. The papists here assume that ' as we have been con- 
stituted unjust in Adam by inherent qualities, therefore, also in 
Christ by a like mode , are we constituted just or justified, seeing 
that through the particles of comparison both are conjoined by the 
apostle.' But the comparison instituted by these particles is, so to 
speak, only in the act itself not in the mode of constituting just 
and unjust. Augustine on Original Sin (Book II., chap. 24), says: 
" In the design (causa) of these two men Christian faith properly 
stands (consistit), of whom by the one we have been sold under 
sin, by the other we have been redeemed from sin; the former <f 
whom destroyed us in himself by doing his own will, not the will 
of Him who made him ; the latter hath saved us in himself by not 
doing his own will, but the will of Him who sent him." 2 

Remarks on the Subject. 
Such, then, is the Church doctrine in relation to the topic be- 

1 Summa Theol. Didact. Eleuct., loco 14, Gontroversia Secunda. 

2 Philolog. Sacra., lib. III., Tract. V„ p. 1010. (Leipsic, 1705.) 



REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT. 



107 



fore us ; and thus directly and utterly are the unfounded assump- 
tions and theory of Dr. Hodge as to the forensic imputation of 
sin to the guiltless disclaimed. For if the mode forms no -part of 
the comparison, his whole theory of the gratuitous imputation of 
sin becomes an idle dream — there being no other passage in the 
Scriptures to which he can pretend to lay the slightest claim for 
its support. How, at the outset, he came to hazard, and then to 
insist so peremptorily upon the declaration that this aualogy, as 
construed by himself, " is asserted by almost every old Calvinist 
that ever wrote," and that, as thus construed it is essential to the 
Protestant doctrine, must be referred to himself for that eclaircisse- 
ment which, in view of an assertion so deliberately made, and so 
often repeated, the Church is bound in duty to herself and to God 
to require. Such an affirmation, designed as it is to support 
a principle of such tremendous sequences in its relation to evan- 
gelical doctrine, but likewise to furnish a basis for denouncing, 
as in fatal delusion, all who hold the Church doctrine and re- 
ject his theory, should not have been made without some adequate 
sense of the responsibility incurred thereby. Let, then, the 
grounds of the assertion be presented, or let it be plainly retracted,, 
as in such a case it should be, as utterly unfounded and false. 

The subject, however, is, as we have seen, too important to the 
well-being of the Church and her doctrine to allow it to pass with 
a single remark. And that our readers may perceive the peril 
attending such efforts to substitute a mere assumption as to what 
the truth is, for an actual and easily ascertainable knowledge as to 
what it really is, we solicit a careful consideration of the sub- 
joined extracts (part of which has already been quoted) from the 
published statements of Dr. Hodge respecting the matter, and 
that they be pondered in connection with the preceding citations 
from the Church divines. 

In his review of Dr. Baird's Elohim Revealed Dr. Hodge says :. 
"The fact that men were born under condemnation was [by the 
old divines] sometimes referred to the imputation of Adam's sin 
as something out of themselves, at others to the corruption of na- 
ture derived from him. What finally modified and harmonized 
these representations was the acknowledged analogy between our 
relation to Adam and our relation to Christ. It was soon seen 
that what the Bible plainly teaches, viz. : that the ground of our 



208 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



justification is nothing subjective, nothing done by us or wrought 
in us ; but the righteousness of Christ, as something out of our- 
selves, could not be held fast in its integrity without admitting that 
the primary ground of the condemnation of the race was in like 
manner something neither done by us nor infused into us, but the 
sin of Adam out of ourselves, and imputed to us on the ground of 
the union representative and natural between him and his pos- 
terity." 1 

This most unfortunate representation, which Dr. Hodge does 
not even attempt to sustain by a single reference either to au- 
thority or fact, is substantially reiterated on page 340 of the same 
work, while on page 341 he thus follows it up: "The main point 
in the analogy between Christ and Adam, as presented in the the- 
ology of the Protestant Church, and as exhibited by the apostle, is 
that, as in the case of Christ, His righteousness, as something 
neither done by us nor wrought in us, is the judicial ground of 
our justification, with which inward holiness is connected as an in- 
variable consequence [sic !] ; so in the case of Adam, his offence, as 
something out of ourselves, a peccatum alienum, is the judicial 
ground of the condemnation of the race, of which condemnation 
spiritual death, or inward corruption, is the expression and the 
consequence. It is this principle which is fundamental to the 
Protestant theology and to the evangelical system, in the form in 
which it is presented in the Bible, which is strenuously denied by 
Dr. Baird, and also by the advocates of the doctrine of mediate 
imputation." It is not without a shudder that I transcribe these 
passages for republication , for a more pernicious and unauthorized 
misrepresentation than they exhibit was never made of the re- 
ceived doctrine of the Reformation. 

In the same spirit he had previously affirmed, that " This anal- 
ogy (i. e., as he explains and applies it), is asserted by almost 
every old Calvinist that ever wrote. 'We are constituted sinners 
in Adam in the same way that we are constituted righteous in 
Christ ; but in Christ we are constituted righteous by imputation 
of righteousness, therefore we are made sinners in Adam by the 

1 Princeton Review for 1860, p. 339 ; and on the subject at large see like- 
wise pp. 336, 373, 374, 763, 764. Also the Theology of Dr. Hodge, Vol. I., 
pp. 26, 27, and Vol. II., pp. 192, 195, 196, 204, 205, 212-216, 223, 224, 225, 
and 538. 



REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT. 



209 



imputation of his sin. Otherwise the comparison fails.' (2\r- 
rettin.) 'We are accounted righteous through Christ in the same 
manner that we are accounted guilty through Adam.' {Tuckney.) 
4 As we are made guilty of Adam's sin, which is not inherent in 
us, but only imputed to us, so are we made righteous by the 
righteousness of Christ, which is not inherent in us, but only im- 
puted to us.' {Owen.) We might go on for a month making 
such quotations. Nothing can be plainer than that these men con- 
sidered these cases perfectly parallel as to the point in hand, viz.: 
the nature of imputation" 1 

It is not necessary to point out Dr. Hodge's entire misappre- 
hension of the authorities cited in this last paragraph, further 
than to say that they all — Turrettin, Tuckney, and Owen — de- 
cidedly reject the theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, and 
that they all maintain an objective moral ground in the race for 
the imputation to it of the first offence, even though he here 
cites them in defence of the opposite doctrine, and that he has in 
this instance also deceived himself by taking imputation, in the 
merely forensic sense (a sense in which they never employ it in 
this connection), and " Adam's sin" for Adam's merely personal 
sin, and not the first sin or sin of the race. But we shall conclude 
his representation of the matter by citing the following, wherein, 
as in a focus, the reader will find concentrated the sum and sub- 
stance of all the preceding utterances. He says: "The design of 
the apostle in Rom. v. 12-21, is not simply to teach that as Adam 
was in one way the cause of sin and death, so Christ was in 
another way the cause of righteousness and life ; but it is to illus- 
trate the mode or ivay in which the righteousness of Christ avails 
to our justification. From the third chapter and twenty-third 
verse he has been engaged in setting forth the method of justifica- • 
tion, not sanctification. He had insisted that it was not our 
works or our subjective character, but the blood of Christ, His 
propitiatory death, His righteousness, the righteousness of God, 
something therefore out of ourselves, which is the judicial ground 
of our justification. It is to illustrate this great fundamental doc- 
trine of his gospel that he refers to the parallel case of Adam, and 
shows that antecedently to any act of our own, before any corrup- 

1 See Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 171-174, 176, 177. And also Dr 
Hodge's Theology, Vol. II., pp. 227, 551, 552. 
14 



210 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



tion of nature, the sentence of condemnation passed on all men 
for the offence of one. To deny this, and to assert that our own 
subjective character is the ground of the sentence, is not only to 
deny the very thing the apostle asserts, but to overtimi his whole 
argument. It is to take sides with the Jews against the apostle, 
and to maintain that the righteousness of one man cannot be the 
ground of the justification of another." 1 

These assertions, unsupported though they be, have all had, in 
view of the author's position in the Church, a mighty influence 
towards shaping and controlling the doctrinal utterances of her 
ministry ; but in view of them we shall merely leave it with our 
readers to decide how fearful from the beginning has been the 
condition of the churches of the Reformation, both Lutheran and 
Reformed, as exhibited by their own testimony in the present 
and preceding sections of this work ! They, with the exception, 
perhaps, of a supralapsarian or two, not only have thus denied the 
very thing which, according to Dr. Hodge, the apostle here af- 
firms, but have never paused in their terrible career till they had 
overturned his whole argument, and taken sides with the Jews 
against him, and had consequently, in like manner, maintained 
that the righteousness of one man cannot be the ground of the 
justification of another. How sad to contemplate these entire 
communions as thus rushing pell-mell, and apparently without 
knowing it, into such an apostasy ! as they must have done if Dr. 
Hodge is correct. Would it not have been better for them to 
have never left the papal church at all than to assume such an 
attitude against Paul ? 

It will not be necessary, however, that we point out to the in- 
telligent reader the complete antagonism existing between the 
aforesaid statements of Dr. Hodge and the statements of the re- 
presentative divines of the Church, as presented in the sections 
above referred to. His views on these great and leading points 
are a perfect antithesis to theirs, and on those points there neither 
is nor can be anything in common between them, as his theory 
has of necessity compelled him to affirm, as we have fully shown 
by his own admissions (cited in our Second Section) in relation to 
the; issue involved in this discussion. Both of course, therefore, 
cannot be true, any more than sin and holiness can be identical. 
1 Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 344, 345. 



REMARKS ON THE SUBJECT. 



211 



And hence it is obvious that Dr. Hodge's claim to be in doctrinal 
agreement or sympathy with those divines can be by no possibility 
intelligently allowed, any more than the idea could be intelligently 
entertained that he might really and sincerely receive a propo- 
sition as true which he at the same time denounces and repudiates 
as utterly false; and if Dr. Hodge, therefore, really regards the 
views of the Reformed church on this vital issue as fundamentally 
erroneous, there can be not the shadow of a doubt as to his duty 
in the premises. 

Had the Doctor investigated the subject properly before he thus 
committed himself to denunciation and proscription (for it is in- 
conceivable how any. well-read theologian could have hazarded 
such utterances), he would have learned for himself the actual 
facts in the case, and also how dangerous the course he was pur- 
suing. It is always perilous to substitute (in important matters, 
at least) mere fancies for facts, and especially if such procedure 
be accompanied by a peremptory or proscriptive spirit. Such a 
disposition is not unfrequently left to the mortifying results of its 
own indulgence. And though it be extremely painful to advert 
to these particulars, it is demanded by the necessities of the case. 
No man can, without adequate investigation, possess the right to 
assume that in a certain important connection a vitally important 
principle, in either doctrine or ethics, must be as he would wish 
it to be, and thereupon to denounce in the most unmeasured and 
offensive terms all who refuse to concur with his representation ; 
and still further, and in view of such assumption, to insist on a 
principle which, if received, must ultimately and logically induce 
a fundamental change in the whole system of evangelical doctrine. 
And when such an effort is attempted, any one whom God in His 
providence has enabled to obtain a true knowledge of the actual 
state of the case would prove recreant to duty, and richly merit 
the execration of all the wise and good, should he, from the puer- 
ile and dishonoring fear of being misapprehended, or made to 
suffer from the proscription and calumny of the servile and hostile, 
fail, at any possible sacrifice, to apprize the Church of her danger, 
even though, for the time being, she may be so over swayed and 
blinded by the influences brought to bear upon her judgment as 
to be unwilling to take the matter into serious consideration; or 
should even fall in with that infamous utterance of cowardice ail 



212 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

of treachery to God's own truth, that position in the Church is 
the criterion for soundness of doctrine; for such a state of things 
must inevitably be brought to a merited and dishonorable end. 
In the present instance, the dogma in question is claimed by Dr. 
Hodge to be an essential part of the analogy referred to. Then, 
of course, the conclusion seemed reasonable that the grand and 
learned old divines of the Reformation must have perceived it, 
and accordingly the next assumption is that it was both perceived 
and maintained by them. The notion thus begotten and born is 
then fostered, until, in the view of-its parent, it becomes funda- 
mental to the Protestant theology ; and, of course, all who refuse 
to entertain it are asserted to be in fundamental error, and are 
shamelessly traduced and denounced, as reversing the doctrine of 
the apostle and taking sides with the Jews against him. And these 
asseverations, unfounded and false as they are, have been emphati- 
cally inculcated upon a large proportion of the ministers of our 
Church; and are now inculcated in several of our theological 
schools as the truth of God, received and taught by the Church 
from the beginning. It is true that, when the facts become 
known, such assumption and calumnious reproaches can effect no 
lasting injury; and that they may be known, and that the Church 
may be at length delivered from the unhappy results of having 
countenanced thus in its incipiency so deplorable and fatal a de- 
parture from her most precious faith, I have, at the cost of sacri- 
fice which I need not name, and of severe and prostrating labor, 
sought, before it be too late, to arouse her attention to the facts 
in the case. 

But having now disposed of the historic question in relation to 
the import of the analogy, on the interpretation of which the 
whole scheme of Dr. Hodge is compelled to lean for support, we 
shall proceed to consider the method of exegesis by which he pro- 
poses to arrive at his aforesaid conclusions. 

§ 18. Dr. Hodge's Explanation of the Passage. 
Prefatory. 

We trust that we may not weary the patience of our readers 
by the effort to present somewhat fully this important paragraph 
of the apostle in its impressive relations to the whole subject be- 
fore us (for everything in regard to the scheme of Dr. Hodge 



DR. HODGE'S EXPLANATION. 



213 



depends upon the view which is taken of it) ; but having presented 
so fully in our last section the analyses of it as understood by the 
Augustinian divines, and, by consequence, evinced that the theory 
of Dr. Hodge had never been even supposed to be taught therein, 
it will, at this stage of the discussion, be only proper to allow him 
to lay before us his own analysis, and to explain on what ground 
he would justify the exposition he has given. 

In his Commentary, the Doctor states that verses 12, 18, and 
19 of the paragraph contain the main idea of the whole passage; 
and as we concur with him, it will be needless to multiply our 
pages by following his detail through the rest of the passage ; for 
to determine the meaning of these verses will be, so far as the 
actual issue is concerned, to determine the doctrine of the whole. 
In order, however, to support his views of the analogy in the 
passage, he has found it necessary to ignore and abandon the ex- 
position which has always been given and maintained, as above 
stated, by the Augustinian divines. This is not referred to as in 
itself unjustifiable ; nor would it furnish any ground of exception, 
important as the matter certainly is, if the fact had been frankly 
admitted (as it most certainly should have been), and substantial 
reasons furnished for the departure. The motto of every one who 
is at all worthy to be numbered amongst the really intelligent of 
our communion always has been, 

" Nullius addictus jurare in verbis magistri ; " 

and such we hope it may ever continue to be. It alters the case 
greatly, however, when, without due intimation, such departure is 
taken for the purpose of sustaining a merely arbitrary assumption 
against the recognized doctrine of the Church ; when it sets aside 
the true and universally acknowledged principles of Scripture 
hermeneutics, and when it infallibly compromises the fundamental 
verities of our system of doctrine, not only by proscribing them, 
and those who receive and support them, but by endeavoring to 
replace the doctrines thus rejected by dogmas wholly antagonistic, 
and which the Church has always discarded. Should it be claimed 
that such a procedure may occur through mistake, and be there- 
fore consistent with uprightness of intention, it need only be re- 
marked (1), that one in Dr. Hodge's position, whose high and 
special duty it had emphatically become to be rightly informed 



214 



ORIGINAL SIN ANT> GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



on such a subject before presuming to commit himself in regard 
to it, had no right to make such a mistake, and that, therefore, in 
such a case it is inexcusable ; and (2), that the fact of its being a 
mistake can in no way either lessen the fatal consequences of such 
a procedure, or cancel our obligation to oppose it to the last. On 
the contrary, instead of being thus lessened, both alike are, in fact, 
enhanced by such a consideration. 

We neither profess to have, nor do we wish to have, any sym- 
pathy with that morbid fastidiousness which, while it would shrink 
from a plain and decided expression of God's truth, when her suf- 
fering interests clearly demand utterance, is, at the same time, dis- 
posed to divest error of its odiousness when some prominent indi- 
vidual becomes its advocate, and even to discountenance and sup- 
press, by every available means, the efforts which are demanded in 
vindication of her claims, lest, forsooth, the result might present 
the errorist in a light not so pleasing as such persons may deem 
desirable. Such recreancy to the cause of God and to the claims 
of His truth cannot be extenuated by the fact, even if it were a 
fact, that the error, in some of its protean forms, may have pre- 
viously existed, even in the Church ; for even they who, in their 
fatal folly, pursue such a course, certainly know what Jesus has 
said of those who are ashamed of Him " and of his words" and 
can hardly suppose that their servility should influence minds who 
are actuated by Christian principle ; and should such persons still 
say or insinuate, as some such have done, that in these most labo- 
rious efforts to deliver the Church from what clearly appears to be 
an impending and fearful apostasy of doctrine, I have sought to 
disturb her peace, or that I have invidiously introduced the facts 
which are essential to a fair and intelligible presentation of the 
case, then they are guilty of falsehood and calumny, and should be 
so regarded and treated by the friends of truth. There have been 
more than is meet of such unworthy and disgraceful tampering 
with God's truth, in the efforts which have been already made to- 
suppress this discussion. 

The Exegesis. 

In the earlier editions of his Commentary, Dr. Hodge advances 
the following exposition as presenting the true sense of the pas- 
sage referred to, retains it unaltered in his revised edition, and 
reproduces it in his " Systematic Theology" : 



' DT. HODGE's EXEGESIS. 



215 



In referring to the words in verse 12, " because all sinned" and 
after enumerating three different interpretations of them, he adds: 
" The third interpretation, therefore, according to which the words 
in question mean, all are regarded and treated as sinners, is 
to be preferred. The verse, then, contains this idea : ' As by one 
man all men became sinners and exposed to death, and thus death 
passed on all men, since all sinned, i. e., are regarded as sinners 
on his account? even so by one man, etc. The arguments in 
support of this interpretation are the following: 1. The word 
translated have sinned may, in strict accordance with usage, be 
rendered have become guilty, or regarded and treated as sinners. 
Compare Gen. xliv. 32, ' I shall bear the blame,' literally, 'I shall 
have sinned.' See also Gen. xliii. 9, 1 Kings i. 21. 2. It is almost 
universally admitted that verse 12 contains the first member of a 
comparison between Adam and Christ, etc. " The scope of the 
passage is to illustrate the doctrine of justification on the ground 
of the righteousness of Christ by a reference to the condemnation 
of men for the sin of Adam. The analogy is destroyed and the 
point of the comparison fails if anything in us he assumed as the 
ground of the infliction of the penal evils of which the apostle is 
here speaking P My design here is to give merely the interpretation 
itself of Dr. Hodge, and so much of the ground for it as to guard 
against misconstruction. The hermeneutical principles involved 
will be considered in the sequel. 

Then, on verse 14, in adverting to this interpretation, he says: 
"All the arguments, therefore, which go to establish the inter- 
pretation given above of verse 12, or the correctness of the exhi- 
bition of the course of the apostle's argument, and design of the 
whole passage, bear with all their force in support of the view 
given of this clause. Almost all the objections to this interpreta- 
tion, being founded on misapprehension, are answered by the 
mere statement of the case. The simple doctrine of the apostle is, 
that there are penal evils which come upon men antecedently to 
any transgression of their own ; and as the infliction of these evils 
implies a violation of law, it follows that they are regarded and 
treated as sinners on the ground of the disobedience of another." 
On verse 15 he repeats the same: " The very point of com- 
parison is that as the righteousness of Christ, and not our own 
works, is the ground of our justification, so the sin of Adam, an- 



216 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

tecedently to any sin of our own, is the ground of the infliction of 
certain penal evils. If the latter he denied, the very point of the 
analogy between Christ and Adam is destroyed." 

Terse 18. "Therefore, as by the offence of one judgment came 
on all men to condemnation, even so," etc. The words rendered 
therefore mark the resumption of the comparison commenced in 
verse 12. 

"There are two important questions yet to be considered, in ref- 
erence to this verse. The first is : what is the force of the phrase, 
by the offence of one judgment came on all men to condemnation f 
There is no dispute as to the meaning of the expression 'judgment 
came on all men to condemnation,' it is admitted to mean what 
alone it can mean, that all are condemned. See above, on verse 
16. But the question is, What is the relation between the offence 
of Adam and the condemnation of men? Or what is the force of 
the words, by the offence of one f 

"We have, therefore, in this single passage, no less than three 
cases, verses 12, 18, 19, in which this preposition (dta) with the 
genitive indicates such a means to an end, as the ground or reason 
on account of which something is given or performed. All this is 
merely sufficient to prove that it may, in the case before us, ex- 
press the ground why the sentence of condemnation has passed on 
all men. That such, in this connection, must be its meaning ap- 
pears, 1, From the nature of the subject spoken of. . . . . 

2, From the antithesis. If the phrase 'by the righteousness of 
one all are justified' means, as is admitted, that that righteousness 
is the ground of our justification, the opposite clause, 'by the 
offence of one all are condemned,' must have a similar meaning. 

3, The point of comparison, as frequently remarked before, lies in 
this very idea. The fact that Adam's sin was the occasion of our 
sinning, and thus increasing the divine displeasure, is no illustra- 
tion that Christ's righteousness, and not our own merit, is the 
ground of our acceptance. There would be some plausibility in 
this interpretation, if it were the doctrine of the gospel that 
Christ's righteousness is the occasion of our becoming holy, and 
that on the ground of this personal holiness we are justified. But 
this not being the case, the interpretation in question cannot be 
adopted in consistency with the design of the apostle, or the com- 
mon rules of exposition." 



dr. hodge's exeg-esis. 



217 



" Verse 19. For as by one man's disobedience many were made 
sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous. 
Tins verse 'presents the doctrine of the preceding one in a some- 
what different form. As in the doctrine of justification there are 
two ideas of the ascription of righteousness and treating as 
righteous ; and in the doctrine of the fall, the ascription of guilt 
(legal responsibility) and the treating all men as guilty ; so either 
of these ideas is frequently presented more prominently than the 
other. In verse 18 it is our being treated as sinners for the sin 
of Adam, and our being treated- as righteous for the righteousness 
of Christ, that is most prominently presented. In verse 19, on the 
contrary, it is our being regarded as sinners for the disobedience 
of Adam, and our being regarded as righteous for the obedience 
of Christ, that are rendered most conspicuous. Hence Paul begins 
this verse with for, ' We are treated as sinners for the offence of 
Adam, for we are regarded as sinners on his account,' etc. 

" With respect to the first clause of this verse, we meet again the 
three interpretations to which reference has so frequently been 
made. That the disobedience of Adam was the occasion of men's 
becoming sinners. That through that disobedience all were cor- 
rupted ; that is, that they have derived a corrupt nature from Adam, 
which is the immediate ground of their suffering penal evils. That 
it is on account of this disobedience they are regarded and treated 
as sinners. With increasing clearness, it may be made to appear 
that here, as elsewhere throughout the passage, the last is the apos- 
tles doctrine. 

" 1. It is in accordance with one of the most familiar of scrip- 
tural usages, that the words to make sinners are interpreted as 
meaning to regard and treat as such. . . . .3. The antithesis 
is here so plain as to be of. itself decisive. To be made righteous 
is, according to Professor Stuart, 'to be justified, pardoned, re- 
garded and treated as righteous.' With what show of consistency, 
then, can it be denied that i to be made sinners,' in the opposite 
•clause, means to be regarded and treated as sinners % If one part 
of the verse speaks of justification, the other must speak of con- 
demnation. 4. As so often before remarked, the analogy between 
the case of Adam and Christ requires the interpretation." 

" The meaning, then, of the whole passage is this : By oxe man 
sin entered into the world, or men were brought to stand in the re- 



218 



OEIGINAX SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



lotion of sinners to God ; death consequently passed on all, be- 
cause for the offence of that one man they all became sinners 
(guilty) ; i. e., were all regarded and treated as sinners. That this 
is really the case is plain, because the execution of the penalty of 
a law cannot be more extensive than its violation, and consequently,, 
if all are subject to penal evils, all are regarded as sinners in the 

sight of God 1 We must conclude, therefore, that men are 

regarded and treated as sinners on account of the sin of Adam." 

In his revised edition Dr. Hodge reasserts this attempt at ex- 
position in the most peremptory and dogmatic style, as though 
there could be no other possible exposition than that which he 
thus offers; when it is wholly inconceivable that he should not 
have known it to be contrary to and subversive of the interpreta- 
tion adopted and defended by all the approved expositors in the 
Calvinistic church. He says: "The only possible way in which 
all men could be said to have sinned in Adam is putatively. His 
act, for some good and proper reason, was regarded as their act, 
just as the act of an agent is regarded as the act of the principal." 1 

Bern arks. 

Such is the exposition, the necessity for which was indispensable 
in order that, by constituting the modes of communicating the con- 
demnatory sentence and the free gift, points of likeness and com- 
parison in the analogy, Dr. Hodge might provide a basis for his 
theory of the merely forensic or gratuitous imputation Of Adam's 
personal sin, a peccatum alienum, to his posterity. Participation is 
thus swept entirely away, and the ground regarded as levelled and 
cleared, and all the impedimenta in the way to the conclusion 
removed. Neither the Socinians nor the Remonstrants, it will be 
remembered, ever required more than this in their contests with 
the Church on original sin. And let it, moreover, be carefully 
observed, that in the foregoing professed enumeration and ex- 
amination of the various interpretations put upon the passage, Dr. 
Hodge makes no allusion whatever to the great cardinal one so 
fully presented by Augustine, and so universally accepted and in- 
sisted on by the churches of the Reformation, as our previous 
citations evince. He ignores it, and all allusion to it, as entirely 
as though it had never in any way come within the range of his- 

1 Revised Commentary, p. 304. See likewise, p. 279. 



DR. HODGE'S EXEGESIS. 



219 



reading. But what, let me ask, is the real pivot of the whole con- 
troversy (not only now, but in the past centuries), if it be not this 
question of participation ? This was the great issue raised by 
Dr. Hodge himself at the outset, and the discussion of which, in 
its relations to his theory, our Church has been earnestly looking 
for at his hand, in view of the decided criticisms which his course 
had elicited, — the great leading point which it was expected he 
should especially present and treat upon in his then forthcoming 
work on theology. But just this point, the most important of all 
others at the present time, in relation to the Church theology on. 
this doctrine, and which should have been most carefully investi- 
gated and decided on, is net examined into, but treated as of no ac- 
count in this long expected theological work. And thus, while even 
claiming to carryforward " the strength of the Calvinistic system" 
in its great representative feature, he, apparently without being 
conscious of it, aims a death-blow at the very heart of the whole 
system. And yet all may see, that if, as he alleges, the idea of 
participation be an absurdity, and nonsensical, etc., etc., and yet 
has been from the first regarded by the whole Church as a great 
and fundamental doctrine, much more was there reason why Dr. 
Hodge should not thus attempt to give it the go by. But instead 
of attempting in any way to sustain his offensive allegations, he 
asks the Church (as Strauss does, in regard to miracles) simply to 
presuppose an impossibility in relation to it} For though in the 
revised edition of his Commentary he does advert to it, it is sim- 
ply for the purpose of repeating his assumption that it is impossible 
and nonsensical. 

The school of Socinus were among the most learned as well ag- 
the most inveterate of all the impugners of the theology of the 
Reformation ; and next to the doctrine of the Trinity and its more 
direct corelates their hostility was most envenomed against the 
doctrine of original sin as set forth in our Confessions and main- 
tained by our leading divines. For until the doctrine of our par- 
ticipation in the first sin could be exploded they felt that no reason- 
able expectation could be entertained of being able to abolish the 
doctrine of a real satisfaction for sin. While, on the contrary, 
could they succeed in annulling the former so far as to establish 
the notion that the race could be said to have sinned only forensi- 
1 See Christleib's Modern Doubt and Christian Belief, Lecture VI. 



220 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

cally or putatively in Adam, little difficulty would remain in the way 
of demonstrating that, as putative sin could require only putative 
expiation, the satisfaction rendered by Christ for the sin of the 
world was not a real, but merely a putative or forensic satisfaction, 
which any unfallen creature might accomplish. And hence the 
necessity that our Redeemer should be truly God is at once set 
aside, and along therewith the doctrine of the Trinity and its co- 
related truths. And hence they brought steadily to bear against 
the doctrine of our participation in the first sin all the resources 
of their learning, and wit, and sarcasm, and ferocious denunciation. 

In this controversy the Reformers constantly appealed to Rom. 
v. 12-21, as teaching the Church doctrine of participation, and 
claimed that the apostle therein announces that w r e all sinned when 
Adam sinned, and were constituted sinners, and consequently 
shared deservedly in his condemnation. (See Sections 9-14 and 
17, above.) And it was in order to set aside this doctrine that the 
Socinians, and subsequently the Arminians likewise, adopted and 
elaborated, the exegesis which I shall now proceed to lay before our 
readers ; and I do this with the earnest request that they will care- 
fully compare it, together with the results which it announces, 
with the exposition presented by Dr. Hodge. 

§ 19. The Socinian Exegesis of Romans v. 12-21. 
1. We commence with Faustus Socinus. 

In his paraphrase of Romans v. his criticism on verse 12 ex- 
tends only to the substitution of qaatenus for the in quo, com- 
monly then adopted by the Church divines ; for his objection to it 
was that it favored the doctrine of participation. 

We present the next passage in his own words: "Vs. 18, 19. 
Sicut enim, etc. Quandoquidem sicut per inobedientiam unius hom- 
inis factum est ; ut multi propterea quod ex ipso secundum carnem 
nati essent, pro peccatoribus si?it habiti, atque ut tales tractati, sic 
similiter per obedientiam unius hominis, multi propterea, quod ex 
ipso secundum spiritual sunt nati, pro justis sunt habendi atque ut 
tales tractandi." 1 This is simply affirming in Latin the criticism 
which Dr. Hodge has above affirmed in English : that to be con- 
stituted sinners, and to be constituted righteous, means, in this 
passage, nothing more than to be regarded and treated as such. 
1 See Opp. Tom. L, p. 149, in Biblioth. Frat. Polonorum. 



THE S0C1XIAX EXEGESIS. 



221 



Thus, in his "Work, Be Servatore, 1 Part IV., Chapter 6, he gives 
an extended exposition of the passage, wherein he violently assails 
the Church doctrine from the standpoint of this exegesis. 'We 
give a few extracts. He commences with a pointed address to 
Covetus (against whom the book was written), who had claimed 
that the passage in Eomans v. supported the orthodox doctrine,, 
and says to him : " But that which appears to support your views 
strongly, is the comparison of the obedience and righteousness of 
Christ with the disobedience and offence, of Adam." Covetus had 
said, " For Paul in that comparison plainly teaches that all have 
sinned in Adam, and have become obnoxious to death on account 
thereof (ob earn rem) ;" and deduces from it the doctrine that the 
first sin, as committed in and with Adam, was imputed for condem- 
nation to all his posterity, as the obedience of Christ was imputed 
to all believers as a release from condemnation. Socinus, how- 
ever, denounces the whole statement as false, while he cheerfully 
admits that we are saved by Christ alone, and that we are ad- 
judged to all the miseries of our present condition, and to eternal 
death for the personal sin of Adam. He continues thus : " You 
appear to have formed your opinion from those words in the Latin 
"Vulgate, ' in whom all have sinned ;' but even they cannot be in 

any way shown to contain that opinion They therefore 

who think that in this whole comparison there is nothing said of 
actual sin (as they name it), are, as we shall presently show, 

egregiously deceived Besides they can in no way explain 

those expressions so often repeated by the apostle, — by the offence 
of one, and through the offence or disobedience of one, — from which 
it is made plain that the one offence of Adam, and not the actual 
sins of men, ?«$ there regarded by Paul as the cause of the condem- 
nation and death of the human race" Then, in reply to an ob- 
jection, and after quoting verse 16, he thus proceeds: "For Paul 
here clearly announces this difference between condemnation and 
justification, that the former had proceeded from one offence only, 
but the latter from the forgiveness of many offences ; which dif- 
ference had not been affirmed by him, if he had taught that con- 
demnation proceeds from the actual sins of men And al- 
though this portion of Paul's discourse has been, and may be, 
variously explained, yet this is always elicited from it, that this 
1 See Opp. Tom. II., p. 182-246. 



222 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



difference ought to be acknowledged as to the evil which we have 
-contracted from sinning Adam, and the good we have derived 
through Christ's obedience ; that the former has proceeded from 
one, or from the offence of one, but the latter from many, or the 
forgiven offences of many, which difference, as above stated, can 
bave no existence if we maintain that in that evil Paul can refer 
only to our actual sins." (Pages 221, 222.) 

He then, after endeavoring to trace the repetition of " cdl " in 
verse 12 to Hebrew usage, and after remarking that the relative 
Mi could have been properly substituted for the second all, thus 
proceeds: " From which repetition they who do not -rightly per- 
ceive the aim of the apostle gather the doctrine that the whole 
human race have been subjected to death, although the apostle in 
these words has really declared to them nothing more than that 
all have been subjected to death who have sinned." Then, after 
adding that "hence it happens when they see, especially in the 
case of infants, that the expression the whole race sinned cannot 
refer to actual sin, they make it refer to what they call original sin, 
for the confirmation of which notion they interpret the words in 
quo as if they were in quo homine, for, say they, in the first man 
the whole race did not sin actually, but originally" on which, 
with some impatience, he remarks, " Which doctrine and interpre- 
tation they are not able in any way to sustain ; for who is there 
that cannot see that this is a discourse, not on original but actual 
.sin, seeing that death is said to have entered into the world by 
sin ?" 

Then, i 1 after insisting on this in his customary style of proscrip- 
tive arrogance throughout the next five paragraphs, and discussing 
other portions of the passage, he thus proceeds : "Quamvis enim, si 
summum jus, etc. ; i. e., for even though we should consider the 
rigid right which God may exercise towards any, and that, perhaps, 
wrong-doing may at the least deserve death, yet here there is no- 
thing said of any other right which may flow from that sentence 
which was brought against the offence of Adam. For death has 
not therefore entered into the world because it is the nature of any 
sin to produce death, but because God saw proper to punish the 
sin of the first man with death." (Page 225.) It is on this 
ground that Socinus claims to deny the truth of the Church doc- 
trine of the imputation of the sin of Adam, and of the obedience 



THE SOCINIAN EXEGESIS. 



223 



of Christ, although he here admits as fully as Dr. Hodge himself 
^the merely juridical or forensic ; and he and his school asserted in 
every form the doctrine of a merely forensic imputation. At the 
same time, therefore, that they deny the real imputation of both 
sin and righteousness, they in the strongest manner insist that the 
judgment unto condemnation passed upon the race for the personal 
sin of Adam alone, and that salvation redounds to men only through 
or on account of the obedience of Christ. Had the Church doctrine 
of imputation, then, really been what Dr. Hodge insists that it was 
— that we are regarded and treated as sinners on account of the 
merely personal sin of Adam, as believers are regarded and treated 
as righteous on account of the obedience of Christ — Socinus would 
have been its strongest supporter, for this is the very dogma which 
he arrays against the Church doctrine, and which he and his school 
everywhere insist on. 

On account of his representative position we have cited Socinus 
more fully than we shall his disciples. Our next is — 

2. Jonx F. Crellius, who, in learning and critical acumen, was 
certainly the ablest of the Socinian school. He has copiously ex- 
pounded the paragraph before us, first in his Corr,mentary on the 
epistle, and then in his Paraphrase. We shall cite briefly from 
both. 1 

On page 12 of his Commentary he says: " And so death passed 
to all men. In these words he (Paul) shows that Adan drew and 
involved his posterity into the same ruin with himself, and that 
through his sin it was brought about that his posterity should be 
in that same condition For this punishment has re- 
dounded upon his whole posterity, who yet, as regards their being 
his posterity, there existed no reason why they should be punished" 
(P. 124.) He presents this feature (let our readers observe), as 
discriminating the Socinian doctrine from the received doctrine of 
the Church. 

In his Paraphrase he represents the apostle as saying: Cum 
ergo, ut hactenus docuimus, tanti Dei beneficii, hoc est justifica- 
tionis ac vit^e sempiternse per Christum fiamus participes ; . . . 

. . hinc jure concludi potest, totius hujus rei imaginem quon- 
dam nobis esse propositam in re contraria, hoc est in Adami lapsu 
ut eo, quod hide turn ad ipsum, turn ad universam ejus posteritatem, 

1 His works from Vols. III. and IY. of the Biblioth. Frat. Polonorum. 



224 



ORIGINAL SIN AKD GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



redundat, damno." And lie adds that there was nothing wrong in 
this, seeing that this punishment was consentaneous to their natural 
condition ; and besides, that God, on account of the sins of parents,' 
treats their posterity more severely than He otherwise would have 
done." (P. 212.) His views on divine justice are very decided, as 
may be seen by his annotations on Heb. x. 26, 32, and differed 
materially from the mere governmental notion of Socinus. 

On verse 18 he continues thus: " v Apa uOu. Here at length, the 
apostle explicates the apodosis more fully : as by one sin to all men 
unto condemnation. The \\ t oy& judgment is to be understood here 
from verse 16. By one sin judgment, to wit: came upon all men 
unto condemnation, so by one act justly upon all men unto justifi- 
cation of life. The word grace, or free gift, is here also to be- 
supplied from verse 16. But the whole obedience of Christ is here 
regarded as if it were one act, that by so much more elegance the 
antithesis might be presented between his obedience and the single 
transgression of Adam." (P. 126.) 

In his Paraphrase expresses it thus: " Quare, ut compara- 
tionem superius cceptam absolvimus, et totius rei summam con- 
cludamus. Quemadmodum ex uno delicto unius homlnis, con- 
secutum Dei judicium om.nes homines damnationi subjecit, eo, quo 
supra explicuimus, pacto ; ita etiam unius hominis justitia factum 
est, ut gratia divina, in omnes homines qui nempe earn, ut diximus, 
amplectunttir, dimanaret, ac vitam illis sempiternam afferet." 
(P. 213.) 

On verse 19 Crellius says: "For as by the disobedience of the 
one man the many have been constituted sinners ; that is, they are 
no otherwise treated than as if they had transgressed as Adam 
did, under the threatening of death, the law which God had 
plainly announced ; or, which is the samething, they are treated as 
sinners, and subjected to condemnation and death. (Tanquam pec- 
catores sunt tractati, ac morte damnationique subjecti.") 

" So by the obedience of one many shall be constituted righteous. 
So with all those who believe in and obey Christ, God does not 
act otherwise than as if they had fully observed the law, as Christ 
observed it. For if they without law (as I may say) could be con- 
demned, then these also could without law be justified. And then 
further : If God could make such a decree, that if Adam trans- 
gressed his precept, not only he, but all his posterity who should at 



THE SOCIXIAX EXEGESIS. 



225 



all come short of duty, should undergo the same penalty of death, 
he could likewise enact that if Christ should fully observe and 
obey the law, all his followers who obeyed, even if not so perfectly 
as he, should obtain the same condition of happiness." (P. 126.) 

In his Paraphrase he explains the passage as follows: "Y. 
19. For as through the' disobedience of one it came to pass that 
many, that is, all who are begotten of him, should be treated as 
sinners, and be subjected to the same punishment with the parent 
icho had transgressed the divine law, so also shall it be, through the 
obedience of one man, that many, even all who are by him spirit- 
ually renewed, should be treated as righteous, and obtain the same 
reward which he himself obtained." (P. 213.) These extracts re- 
quire no remark in order to develop their bearing on the subject 
before us. We will now hear 

3. Joxas Slichtixgius, their next most eminent leader. 1 
In his Commentary on Romans, and when treating on our 
passage, he of course objects strongly to the in quo (verse 12) of 
the old exegesis, on the ground that it appeared to favor the doc- 
trine of our participation in the first sin; and in the exact style 
assumed now by Dr. Hodge, labors to demonstrate the utter ab- 
surdity of attributing to the posterity any such participation; 
though he employs a grave irony rather than the vapid denuncia- 
tion and abortions of wit so common with his school. He says : 
" Yerse 12, so far as that all sinned. The apostle adds this clause 
lest it might appear to any one to be unjust, that all men should 
be subjected to death because their father had sinned, and became 
subject to death. He replies that this is not unjust ; for although 
in the child death might not assume the form of punishment, but 
was only an effect of the sin of the parent (who had propagated 
to his children the condition and allotment which his crime had 
brought upon himself) ; yet, by so much the more does this take 
place justly, because they and their offspring had all sinned. . . . 
They who insist on in quo here meaning in which man all sinned, 
not only depart from the signification of the Grreek words k<? u>, 
but greatly impair the aptness and coherency of the words of the 
apostle among themselves. Would not the following cohere 
charmingly ? By man sin entered, and by sin death, and so death 
has passed upon all men in which man all sinned. For when 

1 His works are contained in Vol. V., Biblioth. Fratrum Polonorum. 
15 



226 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Adam and Eve sinned there was not as yet any other human 
being on the earth. Nor could Adam, because he himself had 
sinned, make his children guilty of the same sin; for he sinned 
when as yet they did not exist. What part, therefore, could they 
have had in his sin, or in the guilt (reatu) of it ? None whatever. 
The author of the Hebrews says, that through Abraham, as I may 
say, Levi gave tithes (chapter vii. 9), because he could not say it 
properly. But it is one thing to give tithes, and quite another 
thing to sin." (P. 203.) 

Dr. Hodge is less moderate in his denunciation of the doctrine : 
"Sins of which we know nothing, which were committed by us 
before we were born, which cannot be brought home to the con- 
science as our own sins, can never be the righteous grounds of 
punishment any more than the acts of an idiot." "A sin of which 
it is impossible that we should be conscious as our voluntary act, 
can no more be the ground of punishment as our act than the sin 
of an idiot, of a madman, or of a corpse." 1 

On verse 14, Slichtingius says : " Peccata igitur posteris Adami 
imputata sunt ad mortem, non propter legem Dei quae turn non- 
dum extabat, sed propter Adamum ej usque peccatum." And on 
verse 15, "Si unius delicto illi multi mortui sunt; Id est, si unius 
delicto factum est, ut non ille unus tantum, sed et illi multi more- 
rentur." And on verse 18, " Sicut per unxim delictum. Id est, 
propter unum delictum, nempe, Adami, per V ro propter. In 
omnes homines. Intellige ex vers. 16, venit judicium, quo scilicet 
illis imputata sunt peccata. Per omnes homines inteHiguntur illi 
omnes de quibus vers. 12, 14, 15 loqutus est. In condemna- 
tionem. Id est, ut condemnarentur et morte adjudicarentur xpcpa 
s:? ■/.a-dy.pt'j.a ut habuimus vers. 16. In omnes homines. Intellige 
ex eodem vers. 16 venit d6prjp.a a vel %dpt<rp.a, id est, donatio, actus 
gratise, quo illis qui peccarunt imputatur juslitia. In justifica- 
tionem vitrn. Id est, ut justi pronuncientur" etc. (P. 208.) Then, 
after quoting verse 19, he says: "This verse rather illustrates and 
confirms the consequence. For, as through the disobedience. Here 
likewise through is put for on account of. . ... Of one man, even 
Adam. Were constituted sinners; that is, were pronounced sin- 
ners; viere condemned; were adjudged to death, and affected with 
death; for this constituting was by a decree, and in execution of a 
1 Theology, Vol. II., pp. 216, 223. 



THE SOCLXIAX EXEGESIS. 



227 



decree Even as through the obedience; that is, on ac- 
count of the obedience of one man, Jesus Christ. Shall be con- 
stituted righteous : In a similar way, by a decree and the execution 
of the decree ; that is, they shall be pronounced just, released from 
condemnation, and life eternal shall be adjudged and bestowed 
upon them." (P. 20S.) 

4. We conclude with a brief extract from the Compendiolum 
Socinianismi, containing a statement of the doctrines entertained 
by the Socinian churches, and which appears to have been prepared 
by Ostorodus and Voivodius} In chapter III., De Lajpsu hominis 
et Peccato Originis, the subject before us is treated as follows : 

" Our churches teach that through the fall the guilt of necessary 
and eternal death was contracted. (Gen. ii., Bom. v. and vi.) 
That is, that unless deliverance should be brought by the grace of 
God, it would have been necessary for all to have remained in 
death; yet without eternal torment. And they acknowledge that 
this guilt (reatus) has passed upon all the posterity of Adam vnth- 
out any intervening fault (culpa) of their oicn. Yet so that this 
guilt, in respect to the posterity, should bear no aspect of punish- 
ment, but only of a necessary condition attracted naturally in con- 
junction with the race itself." That is, they make it an unavoid- 
able calamity inflicted upon the innocent. 

Remarks. 

Such, then, is the exegesis of the passage plainly and fully ex- 
pressed. And our readers will observe that the question here is 
not whether Dr. Hodge has taken his exposition from this school 
(though their apparent identity is such as might easily lead to such 
a conclusion), or whether his views on other doctrines may coin- 
cide with theirs, but simply whether he has not applied to this great 
locus classicus the same principles of exposition that they have, 
and with the purpose of securing the like result ; that is, the de- 
struction of the doctrine of our 2wticipation in the first sin. This 
is the sole point of inquiry with which the argument is here con- 
cerned. And if language may be regarded as having any definite, 
settled meaning, the forecited extracts demonstrate, beyond cavil 
itself, that the principles of exegesis which he has applied to this 
passage, and so peremptorily asserted, are identical with those 

1 It was first issued at Amsterdam in 1598. 



228 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



which the Socinian school have applied and defended in order to 
destroy the Church doctrine of original sin, and on which they in- 
sist fully as earnestly as he. 

It will be further observed, that the matter with which the main 
question is concerned is not one on which all alike, whether friends 
or foes of evangelical doctrine, may agree, as e. g. in a historical 
or arch geological point of inquiry ; nor does it pertain to a matter 
which is indifferent, and on which the supporters of evangelical 
truth may and do differ, as on church government, the use of 
forms in public prayer, and the like, (though Dr. Hodge, on page 
126 of the abridged edition of his Commentary, has represented 
the exegesis as of this character); but it pertains to one which 
constitutes, to a great extent, the line of separation between the 
system of evangelical doctrine and the system of error which re- 
jects it, and has ever been laboring for its subversion. And, as 
above remarked, the clear and avowed purpose of the Socinian 
school in adopting and defending this exegesis was to enervate and 
overthrow the doctrine of original sin, and along with it the whole 
evangelical system of truth as entertained and taught by the 
churches of the Reformation. 

Dr. Hodge's avowed aim in employing this exegesis, and apply- 
ing it as he does, is to explicate the doctrine of original sin as en- 
tertained by the Reformed or Calvinistic church. While, on the 
other hand, the design of the Socinians in employing it (and they 
employ and apply it precisely as he does against the doctrine of 
our participation in the first sin,) was to destroy that doctrine ; 
and thus the Socinian refutation of Calvinistic doctrine on. this 
vital subject is virtually accepted and defended by Dr. Hodge as 
the Calvinistic doctrine itself. Such is the real state of the case 
into which he has been inducting the Church by inculcating this 
exposition, and insisting on it as the only one that is at all possible ; 
and further, by decidedly claiming that the doctrine elicited by 
that interpretation is fundamental to the Protestant theology and 
the evangelical system as taught in the Scriptures. Our readers 
must determine for themselves what to think of this. And then 
further still, if such indeed be the Calvinistic system, they must 
likewise determine for themselves under what category to place 
the labored and learned replies which our theologians have made 
to these arguments and to this exegesis of their opposers. They 



REFUTATION OF THE EXEGESIS. 



229 



were refuted by such men as Pareus (of Heidelberg), Arnold (of 
Franequer), Drs. John Owen, Hoornbeck, Cloppenburg, Maresius, 
Turrettin, and a host of other great and venerable men whom 
the Church, ever since their day, has named amongst her noblest 
sons. They denounced and refuted as ruinous errors not only 
what Dr. Hodge accepts, but what he, in a style the most imperi- 
ous, as well as proscriptive of those who reject his views hereon, 
claims to be the very substance of the gospel economy of salva- 
tion. Were those learned and godly men, therefore, deceived 
and in error in this their estimate of gospel truth, and in defend- 
ing it thus against the rabid assaults of the Socinian school % 
And is Dr. Hodge, on any conceivable ground, to be sustained 
in thus uniting with that school on the vital issue before us, while 
still retaining his connection with a Calvinistic communion? And 
are we now, instead of requiring that he fairly meet and respond 
on the issues which he has thus raised, to concede all this, and 
on the plea (ignoble and disgraceful as it is !) of " carrying forward 
the strength of the federal or representative system," to move over 
into the Socinian camp ? — a movement which he himself has thus 
practically inaugurated ! And still further : Is a fair and candid 
exposure of facts, in which are so deeply and fundamentally in- 
volved the purity, and soundness, and spiritual life itself of the 
Church, to be met by professed followers of Christ by denuncia- 
tions ?md revilings, and by the iniquitously false accusation of 
aiming at notoriety, and to destroy the peace of the Church ? — ac- 
cusations which, from the very beginning, have always and in 
every age heralded the initiation of efforts to subvert the founda- 
tions of her doctrine and efficiency. These are questions which 
the Church herself must now assume the responsibility of de- 
termining. 

§ 20. Refutation of the Socinian Exegesis by the Calvinistic 

Divines. 

Before proceeding to the next general topic in the argument, it 
will be proper to present here in illustration a few brief specimens 
of the replies by which the Calvinistic divines repelled these as- 
saults upon the very citadel of their faith. Our previous citations 
have exhibited their explanation of the passage. And now all 
that will be further necessary is to lay before our readers the re- 



230 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



suits to which they arrived in refuting the theory and exegesis in 
question after the Socinian school had begun to employ it in their 
assaults upon the Church doctrine. We begin with — 
1. Pareus. 

The refutation of the scheme of Socinus which is given by 
Pareus in his commentary on the first three chapters of Genesis, 
was more damaging to that wily heresiarch, and was felt by him 
more keenly than anything which had been previously written 
against it, and for a while his defiant arrogance was completely 
changed by it into deprecation and entreaty. James Covetus, 1 
against whom the De Servalore was written, had alleged that none 
ever suffer death under the government of God unless for their 
own sins or the sins of others. Socinus devoted Chapter 8 of Part 
III. to his refutation of this, and says : " If by death you mean per- 
petual death, your statement is both silly and false. For all men 
since our first parents, and without any sin of their own (etiam sine 
ullis propriis peccatis), as will be demonstrated in the sequel, are un- 
der sentence of that death." Pareus, who, when this portion of the 
work appeared, had been for several years professor of theology in 
Heidelberg, takes up and answers all his leading objections, and thus 
replies to the one here cited ; " God has plainly said, that the soul 
that sinneth it shall die. Hence we thus argue against these heretics, 
that whosoever sins dies on account of sin. (Ezek. 18.) All have 
sinned in Adam, by another's sin and by their own. (Pom. v.) There- 
fore, all who die eternally die by another's sin and by their own. 

1 A brief notice of this excellent and learned person may not be out of place 
in the connection. He was born in Paris, in 1546, and died in 1608. His first 
pastoral charge was the church in Villamont, from which he was called to 
that of Paris. But when the civil wars began, he retired to Switzerland, and 
became pastor of the church in Geneva. He labored also during several years 
and with great success at Basle amongst his countrymen who had fled thither 
from the St. Bartholomew persecution, and in 1579 was deputy to the National 
Synod of Figeac. In 1590, Henry IV., who held him in high esteem, invited 
him to become one of his chaplains, but Covetus, preferring to devote his 
labors to the welfare of his flock, declined the invitation. While on a visit to 
Frankfort in 1577, he had a discussion with Socinus, and published his argu- 
ment. Socinus replied in Part I. of his De Servatore, (but the remainder of 
that work was not issued until 1594, in Poland,) and sent the Reply to 
Covetus, but frankly acknowledges that it never reached him ; and hence it 
received no answer. Du Pin, in speaking of Covetus, has fallen into some 
strange errors. 



REFUTATION OF THE EXEGESIS. 



231 



" But let us now briefly examine this heretical assertion, which, 
indeed, is too impudent and unheard in the Christian Church 
(inauditu'm in ecclesia Christiana), that all mankind, after our first 
parents, are doomed to eternal death, without any sin of their 

own What else is this than to charge the scriptures 

with speaking falsely ? . . . As to his other statement, that no 
one suffers death for other's sins, it is sophistical. Other's sins 
(aliena peccata) are either simply another's, in which no other has 
in any way participated with him, or they are secundum quid an- 
other's, which any person may appropriate to himself by some 
method of participation. What they (Socinus and his school) say 
of the former may be true ; but as applied to the latter, it is false. 
For that any one should suffer for the sin of another with which 
he had participated, or in some way aided to perpetrate, is not ac- 
counted unjust by either human or divine law Where- 
fore it was not improper that Christ should undergo spiritual and 
corporeal death for our sins. But all the posterity of Adam do 
communicate in the original offence, not only by participation of a 
sinful nature^ but likewise in the act of sinning itself. (Sed etiam 
ipso peccaudi actu.) We all, therefore, when we suf- 
fer for his sin, do not suffer simply for the sin of another, but also 
for our own. And it is said to be imputed to us all, not as sim- 
ply another's, but also as our own. Neither as being innocent, but 
as companions in the offence, and together guilty with him. (Non 
ut simpliciter alienum, sed etiam ut nostrum ; nec ut insontibus, 
sed ut delicti sociis, et una reis.") 1 

2. F. Spaxheim was one of the most thoroughly learned and 
able divines of the Calvinistic church, and as remarkable for his 
clear penetration and subtlety as for his erudition. In the follow- 
ing paragraph, cited and endorsed by the venerable Hoornbeck, 2 
he takes occasion to restate the faith of the Church on the 
subject before us, and directly in face of the Socinian excep- 
tions. After presenting a fine vindication of the federal head- 
ship of Adam, he says : " What then is there surprising in the 
fact that the sin of this natural and moral head should be reckoned 
as the common sin of the whole body itself? Hence the apostle 
appositely says, in Rom. v. 15 {i<p w), in whom all sinned, or so far 

Comment, in Gen. ii. 17, p. 74, col. 2. (Frankfort, 1647.) 

2 See Hoornbeck's Instit. Theol. Cap. VII., § 7. (Lejden, 1647. J 



232 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



as he sinned all sinned, not only efficiently or demeritoriously, but 
formally likewise ; and it amounts to the same thing, whatever in- 
terpretation be chosen of the apostle's phrase. Formerly, indeed, 
the Pelagians, and to-day the Socinians, have regarded it other- 
wise. But theirs is a heifer with which none of the orthodox can 
here plough ." 

3. Maresius, likewise, was a successful defender of the Church 
doctrine against the Socinians. In their Be Vera Beligione they 
assail the Augustinian theology with great learning and energy; 
and in Book Y., Chapter 18, make their assault on the doctrine of 
original sin. Yolkel (for Maresius refers only to him as the au- 
thor), after remarking that the defenders of this doctrine deduce 
it from principles which are utterly false, proceeds to state it with 
great fairness, preparatory to his assault. Maresius (who replies 
to him, paragraph by paragraph), compliments his fairness, and 
says : " Although in the schools of Christians various questions are 
treated on original sin, we can yet acquiesce in the delineation of 
Yolkel, as far as relates to that natural blot (ad illam labem natur- 
alem), which is derived from Adam to his posterity by generation." 
But as Yolkel proceeds to assail the doctrine first on the ground 
of reason (so as to determine beforehand whether it is absurd or 
not, and in order to ascertain a priori whether God could require 
him to believe it), and professes to find it exceedingly ridiculous 
and nonsensical, and, amongst other things, he says: "Certe nos 
ab Adamo, utut in peccatum illud primum jam lapso, tantum dis- 
taremus quantum a ccelo terra, et ne millessimam quid em corum 
partem, quod Adamus jam lapsus prsestare potuit nos hodie prse- 
stare possemus." Maresius remarks: u But in impugning that 
original blot, the heretic proceeds viciously by deducing the first 
phalanx of his argument from reason, when, first and foremost, he 
should have argued from the scriptures," 1 a caution not less appro- 
priate at the present time. 

Yolkel, in assuming that the doctrine is contrary to reason, says : 
" Plainly it is contrary to its decision that one single act of sinning 
should have power to destroy the whole nature of man, and even 
the will itself ;" to which Maresius replies by showing that an act 
of sin perpetrated by a holy being cannot but produce this effect, 
and that it changed angels into demons, and that, according to the 

1 Hydra Socinian Expugnat., Tom. III. pp. 549, 550. (Groningen, 1662.) 



REFUTATION OF THE EXEGESIS. 



233 



law of generation through which like begets like, it is right that 
Adam, should propagate to his seed that habitual corruption which 
he contracted by his sin. as the Ethiopian begets an Ethiopian, and as 
the leprous a leper, and as certain diseases are hereditary in fami- 
lies But his was in this sense natural, forasmuch as he vi- 
tiated in himself the fountain of our whole nature. Whence it is 
said that he begat a son in his own likeness ; not in the likeness of 
God, which, by his sin, he had abolished in himself and in us alL 
Kor is it necessary to say, ' that the sin of Adam had not truly 
this power per se ; but that this teas a punishment inflicted on ac- 
count of it by God ; for first, it is certain that the sin of Adam 
had this power, that it could deface and abolish the image of God,, 
or the original righteousness in w T hich he was created,'' etc. (Pp~ 
450, 451.) Then in chapter 21, referring to Yoikel's remarks on 
the comparison of Christ with Adam, he says that "this whole 
comparison (Rom. v. 18, 19; 1 Gor. xy. 22), bears directly upon 
the question. For as the first Adam sinned, not as acting solely on 
his own account, but on the account of all who were reckoned in 
him, so Christ, the second Adam, perfectly obeyed the law and 
satisfied divine justice on our account, for whom he stood ; so that 
it will equally accord that the obedience of Christ is imputed to 
us for righteousness and forgiveness, and the disobedience of Adam 
for guilt and condemnation. 2sor can Volkel extricate himself 
from this conclusion otherwise than by denying that we sinned 
in Adam, or that the sin of Adam was imputed to his posterity." 
(P. 407.) 

In replying to Yolkel on verse 12, Maresius remarks : " Eor it 
must needs be that all who die have sinned in Adam ; forasmuch 
as through this very man sin entered into the world, and death 
by sin, which so passed through him upon all, for that ail sinned, 
although it may otherwise also extend to them who sinned not 
after the similitude of Adam's transgression; that is, actually. 
1ST or could death by itself have passed upon all so far as that all 
sinned, unless by him sinning through whom they were made ob- 
noxious to death. They all were accounted to have sinned. For 
to whomsoever death, the punishment of the Adamic tin, pertains, 
to them should pertain its criminality (culpa), seeing that it is 
foreign from the goodness and justice of God to punish mankind 
so grievously for sin which is in no way their own." (P. 609.) 



334 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



And again: "He (Paul) does not treat of the imputation of sin 
which is simply and absolutely another's (de imputatione peccati 
simpliciter et absolute alieni), which would not accord with 

DIVINE JUSTICE, BUT CONCERNING THE IMPUTATION OF SIN WHICH IS 
TRULY AND PROPERLY THEIRS TO WHOM IT IS IMPUTED, (qU8e nOH 

quadrat justitiae divinse, sed de ejus peccati imputatione, quod 
revera corum est quibus imputatur." (P. 610.) It is quite un- 
necessary to dwell upon these extracts, and we conclude with 
the following: 

4. Arnoldus, of Franequer. 

The Racovian Catechism was compiled from the works of 
Socinus by Valentine Smalcius (Smaltz), and was published in 
1606. It was replied to by Maresius, Alsted, Hoornbeck, Alting, 
and others; but as the late Dr. Archibald Alexander has justly 
remarked: "No refutation was so full and satisfactory as that of 
Arnold." 1 He takes up each question with its answer, and replies 
to them seriatim; and from this reply the few following extracts 
are made, which we present in the translation of Dr. Alexander. 

In the reply to Question 1, Arnold says: "Hence also we may 
understand what is to be thought of that declaration, that it is in- 
consistent with justice for a man to be deprived of free will. It 
certainly belongs to justice to inflict deserved punishment on the 
disobedient, but this depravation is a part of the punishment. 
Neither have you a right to say that all men are not chargeable 
with the sin of Adam, that as they never committed that sin they 
cannot be punished for it; for undoubtedly Adam should be con- 
sidered as the head of the whole human race, and so his sin was 
not personal, but universal. As the father and head of the whole 
family of man did he perpetrate the crime, and so he involved all 
his posterity in guilt, and thus spiritual death has come upon 
them, as the merited punishment of this sin, and this includes the 
depravation of the free will of man." (P. 232.) 

On Question 2, he says: "It is true the Scriptures do not ex*- 
press the inherent and habitual stain of our nature by using the 
technical phrase original sin, but they clearly designate the same 
thing by words which have the same import." (P. 233.) " There 

1 See Dr. Alexander's article on this subject in Princeton Essays, First 
Series, pp. 228-249, as republished from the Princeton Biblical Repertory for 
the year 1833. 



REFUTATIONS" OF THE EXEGESIS. 2€>0 

is no truth nor force in what is next asserted, 'that the fall of 
Adam did not corrupt his own nature, and, therefore, could not 
•corrupt that of his posterity.' For they admit that eternal death 
was the punishment incurred for the sin of Adam ; and why should 
it seem strange that that act which subjected the transgressor to 
so great a penalty, should, at the same time, work a corruption of 
his nature \ Surely that which could effect the greater might 
.also produce the less. But the reason why the sin of Adam cor- 
rupted the nature of his posterity teas, because it was not the sin of 
an individual, as your sin or my sin. eft ft was the six' of the 
whoee race. It was a universal tin. For Adam was the stalk, 
the rout, the head of the whole family of man." (P. 235.) 

In remarking on Question 3, he says, "Another evidence that 
inherent natural depravity is included in the account [in Genesis 
iv. 5. and viii. 2T_ is. that infants, who are incapable of actual 
sin, were nevertheless swallowed up in the deluge as well as adults. 
Xow this judgment was sent upon them justly or unjustly ; if the 

f* , » 7 .7 7 77 • # 7 * T " *_£ _i 

Jirst, then they are chargeable with sin, and grievous sin too, to 
deserve such a punishment : but this of necessity must be origi- 
nal sin, fur. as we have seen, they are not capable of actual sin. 
But if this punishment should be pronounced unjust, then we do 
no less than accuse the Governor of the world of acting the part 
of an un just judge in bringing such a calamity unjustly upon His 

innocent creatures, which wofld be bfasfhexft As in- 

iants perished in the deluge, and God is here giving the reason 
why the deluge was sent, it must be comprehensive enongh to in- 
clude them, and therefore we must include original as well as ac- 
tual sin, unless any one will choose to maintain that infants were 
jmnished without any faults, which, as was before shown, would be 
an impious impeachment ot the character or (rod.' ' (Page 23 i .) 
And on Question -I, he savs. "Individual properties are not indeed 
communi ceded by ordinary generation, but qualities whiich a feet 
the whole species are transmitted, of which nature is original sin." 
(Page 239.) 

The following is the next question, with its answer : 
"Question 5. But does not Paul say, Bom. v. 12, that all men 

have sinned in Adam { 

"Ans. It is not declared in the text quoted that all men sinned 

in Adam, for the words in Greek kc w, which are everywhere ren- 



236 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

dered in Latin by in quo, in whom, may with more propriety be 
rendered because that, or since, as in the parallel passages, Rom. 
viii. 3, h a>, in that ; Phil. iii. 12, £<p w, that for which ; Heb. ii. 
13, &(p w, in that; 2 Cor. v. 4, w, because that. It is evident,, 
therefore, that the doctrine of original sin cannot be built on this 
passage.'' (Page 241.) 

In his reply, Arnold, after referring to the analogy between. 
Adam and Christ in the context, and remarking on the above 
criticism, says, " But if we take the phrase as our adversaries wish 
to designate, not the subject, but the cause, it will amount to the 
very same thing. For the reason is here assigned by the apostle 
why death has passed upon all men ; and according to this inter- 
pretation the reason is ' because all sinned but this cannot be 
understood of actual sin, for in this sense all w r ho die have not 
sinned, since infants are incapable of sinning actually. The mean- 
ing, therefore, must be that all have sinned in their first father and 
representative. If the]/ had not sinned in him. they would not 
have been subjected to the punishment of the first transgression. 
And that condemnation comes on the race on account of their 
one sin is so clearly taught in the following verses, that there is 
no room left for any reasonable doubt that the apostle meant to 
teach that this sin was imputed, or that hence condemnation was 
incurred by all men. It is repeatedly declared that by one sin of 
the one mem many had died, had come into condemnation, had been 
constituted sinners, etc. ; it seems, therefore, most natural and. 
reasonable to suppose that the apostle, in the 12th verse, where 
he assigns a reason for the death of our whole race, means the 

same which he evidently does in the subsequent verses ... 

In this passage are clearly taught, first, the universal and total 
corruption of all men ; secondly, that this corruption is derived 
from the first man, not by imitation of his first sin, concerning 
which many know nothing, and of ivhich others were incapable, 

BUT BY A PARTICIPATION OF THE CRIME OF THE FIRST MAN. Hence 

also men are bound to suffer death, although not guilty of actual 
sin ; for, according to the nature of the apostle's argument, the 
participation and propagation of sin and death must be derived 
from one man, just as the participation and propagation of right- 
eousness and life are derived from another, even Christ. In a 
word, the argument may be stated simply thus : £ As by Christ 



REFUTATION OF TUE EXEGESIS. 



237 



alone life and righteousness are introduced, so by Adam sin and 
death. And as all who are justified and receive the gift of life 
are indebted for these benefits to Christ alone, so as many as sin 
and die do all sin and die in Adam alone.' The same thing is 
necessarily implied in those words, £ As in Adam all sin [die], so 
in Christ shall all be made alive ;' for evidently if all die in Adam, 
all must have sinned in him. It is repugnant to every idea of 
divine justice that any should he subjected to the punishment due 
to another without any participation in his sin" (Pp. 241, 242.) 

Thus clearly and constantly, and in the very face of their 
learned and scoffing antagonists, do these eminent men reaffirm 
the subjective guilt of Adam's posterity in his first sin, and their 
participation with him therein. They attempt no solution nor 
explanation of the fact, but accept the statement as a divinely re- 
vealed explanatory principle, and employ it as such in teaching 
the doctrines of the cross. 

I conclude these extracts with the following, which is Arnold's 
last paragraph in reply to Question 5: "As to the exception of 
Ostorodus, 1 that in this passage the word 'sinners' does not denote 
those who were truly such, hut persons who are spoken of as if 
they had been sinners, it is too unreasonable to require a mo- 
ment's consideration; hut it is enough for ever to silence this 
objection, that these persons are really subject to the penalty of 
death. If, therefore, they are liable to death, which is the wages 
of sin, they must be sinners, otherwise there could be no corre- 
spondence between the crime and punishment. If the crime 
were merely suppositltious and the punishment real, how could 
God be a just Judge when He treated those as real sinners 
who were only putatively such." (p. 243.) 

Such, then, in a word, is the method by which the Reformers 
treat that theory and exegesis which is now so imperiously asserted 
and insisted on by Dr. Hodge. They universally disclaim it as 
subversive of the doctrine of original sin, and of all proper con- 
ceptions of the righteousness of God. It was probably Ostorodus 
who suggested it to Socinus, either from Erasmus or the scholas- 
tics, and hence it is here attributed to him rather than to the 

1 This really learned and noted Socinian died at Brescow in 1611. He had 
probably learned from Erasmus the forensic criticism to which Arnold refers. 
See our Section 16, near the end. 



238 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



latter. This same exegesis was repudiated and denounced at 
Princeton until the year 1833 at least, as is apparent from Dr. 
Alexander's presentation and emphatic endorsement of these state- 
ments of Arnold, and until then they were beyond the shadow of 
a doubt the recognized doctrine of the Presbyterian Church. But 
we cannot dwell upon this point, and shall therefore conclude the 
section by presenting a few of the remarks appended to the fore- 
going by Dr. Alexander: 

" We should be pleased," says this venerable and excellent man,, 
"if our space would permit us to follow this learned and solid 
theologian through the whole discussion ; but what we have ex- 
tracted may serve as a specimen of the manner in which theolo- 
gical discussion was conducted nearly two centuries ago. One 
thing must have struck the reader as remarkable, namely, that the 
modern arguments by which error attempts to defend her cause 
are precisely the same as those employed for centuries past. We 
know, indeed, that those who now adopt and advocate these 
opinions greatly dislike this comparison of modern hypotheses 
with ancient heresies, and denounce it as invidious. But why 
should it be so considered ? Or why should they be unwilling to 
acknowledge the conformity of their opinions with those of ancient 
times, when the argument is so manifest, not only in the doctrines 
themselves, but in the arguments and interpretations of Scripture 
by which they attempt to support them ? If the 4 New Divinity ' 
be correct, then certainly many who were formerly condemned by 
the majority of Christians as heretics ought to be considered the 
true Church and their doctrines as orthodox, while those who cen- 
sured and condemned them ought to be considered as a set of un- 
reasonable bigots, who, by their numbers and influence, were able 
to suppress the cause of true Christianity. 

" Certainly, then, they who are now so confident that they have 
received new tight, ought not to be ashamed of their brethren icho 
struck out this same light hundreds of years before they were born,, 
and defended their opinions by arguments as ingenious and by 
exegesis as learned as any of those now living have a right to pre- 
tend to. It is, however, a fact that those theologians who have 
long maintained the character of being orthodox are very reluctant 
to be classed with Arminians, Pelagians, and Socinians, even when 
they are conscious that their opinions coincide with those desig- 



REFUTATION OF THE EXEGESIS. 



239 



nated by such denominations. This does not arise from any ab- 
horrence of the sects so denominated, bnt from their knowing that 
the Christian public with which they are connected entertain 
strong prejudices against those sects, and it requires no small 
degree of moral courage to stem the torrent of popular prejudice. 
There has been, therefore, in our *Xew Light '" theologians, an un- 
usual solicitude to persuade the religious community thai they xcere 
not contemplating innovations upon the ancient creed of the ortho- 
dox} bnt that they had merely adopted more rational philosophy,, 
by which they were able to explain the knotty points in Calvinism., 
so far as to render doctrines naturally offensive to human reason, 
if not entirely palatable, yet in a good degree free from objection. 77 
"Whether the -'Xew Divinity 7 will maintain the consistency of 
the Socinianism of Poland remains to be proved: hut there is much 
reason to apprehend that, although the theologians who now advo- 
cate it will not have the courage to carry it out to its legitimate 
consequences, yet their successors will be less timid, and will feel 



that, in self -defence, it is necessary to go a great deal farther in 
the line of deviation from orthodoxy than has yet been done. 77 

These considerations are not less pertinent, and are, if possible* 
even more forcible in their application to the subject and method 
pursued in relation to the present discussion, than they could pos- 
sibly have been to the subject to which they were originally ap- 



plied by their venerable author. But still, 1 should have let them 
pass (for it is with real pain that I cite them), if the stern de- 
mands of truth, and of fealty to God and to His kingdom, were 
not such as to render their omission here wholly unjustifiable, if 
not, indeed, criminal. And in view of all the facts in the case, 
and especially of the consideration that, when Dr. Alexander pre- 
pared this translation and the subjoined remarks, there was not 
(and never had been) in our Church any such theory and exegesis 
as Dr. Hodge has since inaugurated, I cannot doubt that God's 
own kind hand has been in this matter, nor that Hi s providence 
has guided both in the selection of the work for translation, and 
in the observations appended thereto : that thus the precious 
name and influence of Dr. Alexander might, even after he had 

1 The italics are ours. But if our readers will compare pp. 8, 4, 9. aud 11 
of the Index Volume to the Princeton Eerieic. they will find a remarkable illus- 
tration and confirmation of the fact here stated by Dr. Alexander. 



'240 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



"been welcomed home to bis heavenly inheritance, be brought still 
to operate in order to aid in rescuing from an impending apostasy 
the Church he loved so well, and so many of the ablest of whose 
ministry he had so successfully aided in preparing for their work 
•of bringing back the wandering and perishing to the fold of the 
Great Shepherd and. Bishop of souls. 

§21. The Exegesis of Romans v. 12-21, as Reproduced and 
Applied by the Remonstrants and Semi-Pelagians. 
The historical treatment of the topic still before us, and in its 
all-important relations to our general theme, could scarcely be re- 
garded as complete without at least a brief presentation of the 
point suggested in the heading of this section, as well as of the 
manner in which, when thus reasserted and applied by these sec- 
taries, the exegesis was still regarded and treated by the Calvin- 
istic church. For it is of the highest importance intrinsically to 
the well-being of the Church we love, to develope here the fact, 
which, indeed, no really well-read theologian will pretend to deny, 
that this exegesis, whenever and by whomsoever asserted from the 
days of Catharinus and Socinus until now, has been aimed directly 
against the Augustinian doctrine of our subjective guilt and par- 
ticipation in the first sin, and has always been regarded by the 
Church herself as wholly irreconcilable with the recognized doc- 
trine of original sin. We have seen how emphatically this is true 
of it as employed and applied by Socinus and his school, and we 
shall now show that it is equally true of it as employed and ap- 
plied by the Arminians and Semi-Pelagians. A few of their re- 
presentative men are all that need be cited in illustration. 

1. CuRCELL^US, (STEPHANUS.) 

Maresius, whose writings we have already quoted in several of 
the previous sections, published also a work in which he arraigned 
the doctrinal soundness of Curcellseus on the' Trinity, and on 
original sin, and several other admitted tenets of the evangelical 
system. Curcellseus had been pastor of the church in Amiens. 
But when the National Synod of Alez (in 1620) adopted the 
Dordrecht Canons and Rejection of Errors, he, after some unex- 
plained tergiversation, united with the Arminians, and on the 
death of Episcopius (1643) was appointed his successor in their 
theological school at Amsterdam. He replied to Maresius very 



THE AEMINIAN EXEGESIS. 



241 



tartly in Quatuor Dissertationes, in the second of which he treats 
upon the doctrine of original sin. 1 Maresius had affirmed and de- 
fended the Augustinian doctrine, and in accordance with his views 
as already presented in reference to the first sin, had said : " Since 
it was the common guilt of Adam and his posterity, it is not 
foreign from the mercy of God that He should have remitted it 
to Adam and many others, or from his justice, that it should be 
imputed for punishment to a still greater number, for God was not 
required to remit it to them;'* to which Curcellseus replies: "But 
whom would Maresius persuade that this was the common guilt of 
Adam and his posterity f Were they then companions in sin- 
ning, or cut-purses (manticularii), of whom the one steals and the 
other conceals? It therefore cannot be called common to both 
otherwise than by a figure of speech (nisi flgurata loquendi ratione), 
because being the specific act of only Adam and Eve it ioas im- 
puted to their posterity, which two things even the blind may see 
how widely they differ from each other." (P. 897.) Thus was 
the doctrine of the Church then understood and held, and thus ivas 
it then assailed ; the Arminian taking the position now assumed 
by Dr. Hodge, and on that ground denouncing and ridiculing the 
Calvinistic doctrine. 

Maresius then, adverting to Ezek. xviii., remarks, that " this 
place should be understood of the personal sin of the parent and 
of the son who is free from any of the guilt. But this hinders 
not that the common and natural iniquity of the first man should 
he justly imputed for punishment to all his seed who sinned in 
him; and who, besides the guilt contracted in him, are also 
through generation inhesively corrupt, criminal, and sinful ;" to 
which Curcellseus answers, " But if in this place God treats of the 
personal iniquity of the parent, and of the son free from all the 
guilt, I have all that I want ; for no iniquity is more properly per- 
sonal than that of Adam and Eve, who, when they sinned, were 
as yet alone in the world ; nor can any descendants be conceived, 
even in imagination, to be more perfectly exempt from guilt than 
those who, in the nature of things, do not exist. But because 
Maresius calls it the common iniquity (iniquitatem communem) of 
the first man, it should be known that it is not common except 
through that imputation concerning vjhich we are disputing. So 

1 See Opera Theol. Curcell., pp. 892 seq. (Amsterdam, 1675.) 
16 



242 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



that the participation (communitas) which in the order of nature 
follovjs imputation, is ridiculously assumed by him to be the ground 

of the imputation Can those, then, who are not as yet 

born, but are pure nihility, contract guilt in Adam ? How can 
this be possible ?" (Page 897.) Thus Curcellseus, while he de- 
nies and ridicules the doctrine of our subjective guilt and partici- 
pation in the fall, affirms, in opposition to it, the very principle main- 
tained by Dr. Hodge, that the first sin was not imputed because it 
was a common sin, but became common by being imputed ; x a no- 
tion which no Calvinist can maintain until he has virtually aban- 
doned the doctrine of his Church. 

Curcellseus, moreover, employs all his resources of wit and sar- 
casm in denunciation and ridicule of the doctrine. Holding as he 
did that God does not require of us to believe that which our in- 
tuitions may pronounce absurd or nonsensical, and that the doc- 
trine of our participation in Adam's sin comes plainly within that 
category, he felt no peculiar obligation to argue against it out of 
the Scriptures. He denounces it as simply ridiculous ; and con- 
sciously unable to grapple with the questions involved in the issue 
itself, he, in order to cover that fact from public observation, re- 
sorts to his senseless attempts at sarcasm. A single specimen, 
which I subjoin in his own words, will suffice for illustration. He 
says : " Unde neminem esse credo qui morsum conscientise accu- 
sants inde sentiat, quod olim in Adamo peccaverit, aut ab eo labem 
originariam contraxerit. Quamvis enim isto hyperbolice et valde 
pathetice exaggerent theologi, in aminos auditorum non penetrant. 
2. Nulla ipsum lege a Deo prohiberi potuisse. Cui enim istam 
legem dedisset ? E"um embryoni, qui primurn in utero materno 
formari incipit % At istud ridiculum est. Embryo enim nullius 
adhuc legis est capax. Num parentibus ? Ut sic matrimonium 
ipse est institutor damnasset." (Page 902.) 

And then he not only adopts and defends the exegesis of Rom. 
v. 12, 18, 19, which Dr. Hodge has now reproduced, but else- 
where insists that the posterity of Adam were not really sinners 
in the first sin, but merely accounted and treated as such, and that 
Adam's personal sin, or rather guilt in that sin, was forensically 
imputed to them as the ground of this treatment. And he pre- 
sents the very texts and ratiocination which Dr. Hodge himself 

1 See Dr. Hodge's Theology, Vol. II., pp. 191, 192, 196, 204, 205, 240, 253. 



THE ARMINIAN EXEGESIS. 



243 



has insisted on, and on page 206 lias a labored argument to prove 
that sin cannot be transmitted through the body, which is no more 
capable of such transmission than a stone or log of wood. Whence 
it follows, says he, that the soul, if created pure, could not be de- 
filed by an impure body, since the body cannot communicate an 
infection which it does not possess. He then proceeds to denounce 
the method of illustration which, as the reader may see from our 
previous citations, was so common in the Reformed theology — that 
as lepers begat lepers, so sinners begat sinners. And on page 907 
he says: "In the Hebrew language, whose phrases the apostles 
often imitate in writing Greek, the name sinners is attributed to 
those who are treated as sinners (qui tanquam peccatores tractan- 
tur), or who are implicated with them in the same calamity ^ even 
though, properly speaking, they are not sinners, or, at least so 
grievous as those who are associated with them in punishment." 
And in proof of this he cites, as Dr. Hodge (under verse 12) 
had done, Gen. xliii. 9 and xliv. 32, and 1 Kings, i. 21, and then 
adds: "In this sense, in this place of Paul, the men who lived be- 
fore the law and had no other general rule of life than the light of 
reason, were said to be constituted sinners by the disobedience of 
Adam, because his sin, rather than their own, was to them the oc- 
casion of death," etc. (P. 90S), and then, finally, in his Instit. 
Religionis Christianm (lib. III. Cap. 16), he repeats the same; 
though, in the concluding paragraph, he recoils from the inference 
(in which Dr. Hodge, however, discerns no incongruity), that a 
merely putative sin may justly deserve and receive actual punish- 
ment. He says : " Let every one, therefore, insist as much as he 
pleases on these words of the apostles, he can elicit from them 
nothing to the purpose, other than that it may be said by a trope 
that we sinned in Adam as Levi was tropically tithed in Abraham. 
But a figurative sin does not deserve punishment properly so called, 
for all punishment should be proportional or analogous to the sin. 
Now, there is no analogy between a punishment which one may 
acually suffer, and a sin improperly so named, and which was com- 
mitted in the person of another. But it is proper that a just pro- 
portion should exist between them ; that as the sin is figurative 
and perpetrated in another, so it should be punished only figura- 
tively, and in another." (P. 136.) 

This certainly is, in its connection, a most instructive paragraph, 



244 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



and evinces not only the difficulty which this learned critic found 
in escaping from his early Calvinistic convictions of God's truth, 
but developes the logical concatenation and connection (which in 
this very effort to escape becomes apparent) existing between a 
putative sin, and a merely putative satisfaction for sin. He is 
led to see this connection, and not only to admit, but even to affirm 
it, and then, subsequently, to carry it forward in logical sequence to 
the full denial of a real satisfaction through our adorable Re- 
deemer for sin.. Let the supporters of the theory that the race 
sinned only putatively in Adam lay this consideration to heart. 
Curcellseus is reported to have lapsed into Socinianism shortly be- 
fore his death. And though he had made no open avowal to this 
effect, some of his posthumous publications render the fact but 
too sadly apparent that he must indeed have done so.' We hope 
that without offence we may request our readers to turn back for 
a moment and reperuse the concluding paragraph of our fifteenth 
section. 

2. Philip Limbarch (Limburgius.) 

After the foregoing full extracts from Curcellseus, a single 
extract will be sufficient from this eminent Arminian, who, it may 
be well to add, was his successor in the chair of theology. Re- 
ferring to Rom. v. 19, he says: "To be constituted a sinner sig- 
nifies in Hebrew phrase to he treated in like manner as sinners 
(perinde ut peccatores tractari.)" Then, after citing as con- 
firmatory Isa. v. 23, and the passages above referred to by Cur- 
cellaeus, he adds: " The sense of the apostle in this place, there- 
fore, is, that God, in consideration of this sin, has treated the 
posterity of Adam until Moses, (who were indeed sinners, but not 
transgressors of the express precept sanctioned by the threatening 
of death,) in like manner as he treated Adam that they might be 
types of the faithful who of Christ are spiritually renewed ; whom 
God, in consideration of the perfect obedience of Christ (though 
their own righteousness is not perfect) would graciously treat no 
otherwise than as if they were perfectly righteous; that is, im- 
pute to them perfect righteousness, and bestow the reward of 
eternal life." 1 

3. Daniel Whitby. 

This learned and acute writer who, in his Commentary on the 
1 Theolog. Christ., lib. III., cap. III., § 18. (Amsterdam, 1730.) 



THE ARMENIAN EXEGESIS 



245 



]S~ew Testament, has, with such signal ability defended the doctrine 
of the deity of out Lord Jesus Christ against both the Arian and 
Soemian schools; but who, near the close of life lapsed thoroughly 
into Arianism, presents substantially the same exposition of 
Eom. v. 12, IS. 19, as Dr. Hodge, and his aim was thereby to 
enervate and abolish the Church doctrine of original sin. In his 
annotations on verse 12, he says: "None of the other senses are 
true, or suitable to the scope and argument of the apostle ; v. g. 
It is not true that death came upon all men for that, or because 
all have sinned. Tor the apostle directly here asserts the con- 
trary, viz. : that the death and condemnation to it, which befell 
all men, was for the sin of Adam only : for hence it is expressly 
said that by the sin of one man many died ; that the sentence icas 
from one, and that by the sin of one death reigned by one ; there- 
fore the apostle doth expressly teach us, that by this death this 
condemnation to it came not upon us for the sin of all, but only 
for the sin of one; e., of that one Adam in whom all men die. 
(1 Cor. xv. 25.) 

"He also farther teacheth. that the death and condemnation 
came upon all for one sin of that one man, for it came dl i>d$ 
xapa-Tto'xaro?. by one offence upon all men ; it came not therefore 
upon all men for the sin of all. and this the comparison plainly 
requires, which saith, the opposite justification and free gift came 
upon all men by one man, Jesus Christ; by the obedience of one, 
and hi £> ' o dtzaidtriaru^ by one righteousness, verses 16, 17, 18, 19; 
i. e., by the obedience to the death of that one man." 

Again, on verse 13, " 2. That the punishment of Adam's sin 
devolved upon his whole posterity is fully proved from this chap- 
ter ; but it is not here said that they were t rv.ly and formally 
made sinners by his sin.'' Then, on verse IT, "Moreover, if all 
the posterity of Adam, they sinned against some law given to 
therDj/br sin is the transgression of a law; and where there is no 
law there is no transgression. Isow, they could not sin in Adam 
so as to deserve death for their sin only by sinning against the law 
requiring Adam not to eat of the forbidden fruit, for Adam him- 
self became guilty of death only by transgressing that law; and 
all the posterity of Adam cannot be said to have sinned against 
that law, for when did they sin against it \ If when Adam did 
so, then all his posterity must be actually sinners from the begin- 



246 ORIGINAL SIN AXD GEATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

ning of the world ; i. e., some thousands of years before the 
greatest part of them had a being. Now, seeing action must be 
-the action of some being, does it not seem absurd at first sight to 
say, that so many myriads were actually sinners when they were 
not in being, if when they came into the world they could not sin 
in Adam, or in his actions, for he did not then eat the forbidden 
fruit in the midst of Paradise ?" 

Wherein does this style of ratiocination differ from that of Dr. 
Hodge against the same doctrine, when he says, " Apostasy being 
an act of self-determination, it can be predicated only of persons ; 
and if the apostasy of Adam can be predicated of us, then we ex- 
isted as persons thousands of years before we existed at all. If 
any man says he believes this, then, as we think, he deceives him- 
self, and does not understand what he says." 1 Or again : " The 
assumption that we acted thousands of years before we were born, 
so as to be personally responsible for such act, is a monstrous as- 
sumption. It is as Baur says, an unthinkable proposition ; that is, 
one to which no intelligible meaning can be attached." 2 

Whitby then, after denouncing the doctrine of the proper im- 
putation of Adam's sin to his posterity (though he admits the 
putative or forensic), says : " These interpretations being so in- 
consistent with the apostle's words, and with the plainest evidence 
of reason, I am forced to prefer before them that of the Greek 
fathers, viz. : that we all sinned in Adam ; i. e., by becoming ob- 
noxious to that death which was the punishment of his sin, and 
that by one man's disobedience many were m,ade sinners, by being 
subject to the death and temporal calamities and miseries which 
came upon all mankind for Adam's sin ; so that we become sin- 
ners in him, or by his disobedience, by a metonymy of the effect, 
by suffering the punishment which God had threatened to him for 
it, as the experience of all men and women show we do in all parts 
of the earth ; and this is a common sense of the word chaUah, 

which signifies both sin and the punishment of it It is 

true we meet not with the words rjfj.aprov and atmpriohn xarsffrddyjffav 
in this sense elsewhere in the New Testament," etc. 

Here, then, the very exegesis which Dr. Hodge insists on is 
fully produced and applied by this learned writer to sustain and 

1 Biblical Repertory and Princeton Bevieiv for 1860, page 357. 

2 See his Theology, Vol. II., page 224. 



THE ARMIXL1X EXEGESIS. 



247 



justify his assault against the Church doctrine of original sin. His 
reference to the Greek fathers will be attended to in the sequel, as 
also the usage of the words here referred to. His admission that 
the j are not elsewhere in the New Testament employed in such a 
sense is one of pregnant interest, as &p.apz&vstv is therein employed 
some forty-three times, and dpapTtoXos forty-six. And it may be 
likewise added, that dpaprta, though employed therein one hundred 
and sixty-nine times, can in no sense be fairly claimed as justify- 
ing this criticism. 1 And we repeat, that the step between attrib- 
uting a merely putative sense to these terms in their relation to 
the doctrine before us, and a similar application to Xurpov and its 
cognates in their relation to the doctrine of satisfaction, is easily 
taken. It was just here that both Curcelleeus and Whitby lapsed 
into Unitarianism — the former into Socinianism, and the latter 
into Arianism. For what is more natural than to conclude that 
as putative sin cannot, in the nature of things, strictly require any 
thing beyond a putative punishment or satisfaction, so it was not 
necessary that our blessed and adorable Redeemer should be truly 
God in order to render such an expiation ? 
4. Johx Taylor, of Norwich, England. 

We conclude these references with a few citations from this 
learned divine, who is, perhaps, more extensively known to the 
American churches than either of the foregoing, on account of 
the signal refutation which his celebrated work on Original Sin 
received at the hands of President Edwards. If that doctrine 
ever had an inveterate and uncompromising assailant, he certainly 
must be admitted to rank under that category. His work itself, 
however, as any competent judge may perceive by comparing the 
two, is little else than a "re-hash" of the forementioned dissertation 
of Curcellseus. But in the commencement of Part II. he quotes 
in full the eight questions and their answers relating to the doc- 
trine as presented in the Westminster Larger Catechism, and then 
turns upon them with all the artillery he can muster; and the ex- 
egesis which he gives of the passage before us was especially de- 
signed by him to deprive the Church doctrine of that which he 
regarded as its main support, and so to prepare the way for its 

1 Our readers, we doubt not, will be gratified to consult on all these terms 
Cremer's recent and valuable Biblico- Theological Lexicon of New Testament 
Greek. (T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1872.) 



248 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



utter repudiation. We shall briefly cite it, and the reader can 
compare it with that of Dr. Hodge. 

On page 30, 1 and referring to Romans v. 12-21, he says: 
"Therefore it follows that these words, By one man's disobedience 
many vwre made sinners, mean neither more nor less than that by 
one man's disobedience the many, that is, mankind, were made 
subject to death by the judicial act of God. This conclusion, I 
think, must be true if words and understanding are of any use." 
(Read Edwards, Yol. II., pp. 427-430.) He then repeats the 
forecited criticism of Curcellseus respecting Hebrew usage, and 
says: "Being made sinners may very well signify being adjudged or 
condemned to death; .... for condemnation in judgment, and 
making one a sinner by a judicial act, by an act of judgment, are 
the very same thing in the Hebrew language " (p. 33). And in a 
note he adds : " It is not in the Greek text kyivovro, became sinners, 
but xarsGTdOrjaav, were constituted sinners, viz., by the will and ap- 
pointment of the Judge." "But besides all this, it is here ex- 
pressly affirmed that the many, i. e., mankind, are made sbmers y 
not by their own disobedience, but by the disobedience of another 
man. JSTow any one may see that there is a va3t difference between 
a man making himself a sinner by his own wicked act, and his 
being made a sinner by the wicked act of another, of which he is 
altogether guiltless. They who are made sinners by the disobe- 
dience of another, without their knowledge or consent, surely can 

be sinners in no other sense but as they are sufferers Sin 

and iniquity are frequently used to signify suffering by putting 
the effect for the cause" (pp. 33, 34). (Read the thorough refu- 
tation of this whole statement in Edwards, II., pp. 494-500.) 

Again, on page 38, he says: "But in the 12th verse, the apostle, 
I say, does not take in both parts of the comparison ; he only men- 

1 See The Scripture Doctrine of Original Sin, by John Taylor ; London, 
1740. As it will not be necessary, after the foregoing full exposure and re- 
jection of this exegesis as employed by the Socinians (see § 20, above), to add 
the Calvinistic refutation of it as' employed also by the Arminians, I merely 
refer the learned reader to Wallaeus' Reply to Corvinus, chapter VIII. And 
I shall also, in the text itself, add some specific references to Edwards' Reply 
to Taylor on the several propositions and objections as they occur in our cita- 
tions. The paging in the references to Edwards is that of the ten volume 
edition of his works, published by Carvill, New York, 1830. 



THE ARMENIAN EXEGESIS. 



249 



tions what happened on Adam's part, namely, that death entered 
into the world by his sin, and by his sin came upon all mankind. 
There he stops awhile, and before he goeth any further brings an 
argument to prove that it was as he said, that death came upon 
mankind, not for their personal sins, but upon account of Adam's 
one transgression : that it was his first sin alone, his own offence, 
which subjected mankind to death." (Read Edwards, II., p. 486, 
seq.) 

Again, on page 40: "The whole of the apostle's argument and 
assertion standeth plainly upon this double foot, that it is by the 
one offence of Adam that death passed' upon all men, and not by 
their own personal sins ; and again, that it is by the obedience of 
one, or the act of Christ's obedience (in His sufferings and death 
upon the cross, I suppose, see ver. 9, 10), that all men are justified 
unto life, and not by their own personal righteousness." (Read- 
Edwards, II., pp. 481-486.) 

Again, on page 51, he says: "ISTothing more, I think, wants to- 
be explained in this passage but the expression (verse 12), And so 
death passed upon all men for that all have sinned, namely, in 
Adam; for the apostle doth not here intend to afrlrm that death 
passed upon all men by their own sins. The whole of his dis- 
course plainly shows that he understood and believed that death 
came upon mankind by Adam's one offence" (Read Edwards', 
II., pp. 483, 511.) Also on page 54: "And should we render 
the words thus, 'And so death passed upon all men, unto ichich 
all have sinned,' and explain them thus — Death passed upon all 
men, as far even as which all men were constituted sinners, or 
were treated as sinners ; that is to say, all men became sufferers in 
consequence of Adam's one offence — I am inclined to believe that 
we should not be wide of the apostle's true intention." (Read 
Edwards, II., p. 476, seq.) 

Again, on pages 56, 57: "To this purpose, let it be observed, 
that by one man, Adam, sin entered into the world. He began 
transgression, and through his one sin death also entered into the 
world ; and so in this way, through his one sin, death came upon 
all mankind, as far even as which all men are sufferers through 
his offence." (Read Edwards, Yol. II., pp. 479 and 483, seq.) 
And then, on page 62, he thus paraphrases verse 19 : " Eor as upon 
the account of one man's disobedience, mankind icere judicially 



'250 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



constituted sinners, i. e., subjected to death by the sentence of God 
the Judge, so it is proportionally right and true that by the obe- 
dience of one mankind should be judicially constituted righteous 
by being raised to life again." (Read Edwards, Yol. II., p. 489.) 
And then on page 253, — and in precisely the same spirit with which 
Dr. Hodge, in his Revised Commentary, assails the Church doctrine 
of our participation in the first sin, as mystic and Pantheistic non- 
sense, which does not rise even to the dignity of a contradiction, 
and has no meaning at all, and that it is a monstrous evil thus to 
make the Bible contradict the common sense and common con- 
sciousness of men, — Dr. Taylor says: "Must it not greatly sink 
the credibility of the gospel to suppose it teacheth the common 
doctrine of original sin ? For if it is easily seen to be an absurd- 
ity, who can believe that to be a revelation from God which is 
chargeable with it ? And I make no doubt this, with other pre- 
tended principles of the like nature, have filled our land with 
infidels. Such doctrines set religion in direct opposition to reason 
and common sense, and so render our rational powers quite useless 
to us, and consequently religion too ; for a religion which we can- 
not understand, or which is not the object of a rational belief, is 
no religion for reasonable beings." (Read Edwards, Yol. II., pp. 
546, 547.) 

Our readers will observe that the language thus cited from 
these two writers is, in both its spirit and aim, homogeneous; and 
that they thus concur in applying it in denunciation of one and 
the same object, to-wit, the Church doctrine of original sin; and 
that yet one of them openly professes himself to be the friend and 
defender of that doctrine, and the other frankly acknowledges 
himself to be its foe. Both cannot be in the right. Which, then, 
is in the wrong ? 

But we need not continue our quotations, for the foregoing will 
suffice to evince what were the principles on which Dr. Taylor 
thus impugned the doctrine of original sin. On page 63 he pro- 
tests the great sincerity with which he has urged his views, that 
it was "in the integrity of my (his) heart, without any design, de- 
sire, or endeavor to cloak or smother, color or dissemble, magnify 
or lessen anything;" and on page 258, that "if upon further ex- 
amination, or the kind information of any person, I find myself in 
any mistake, I shall be very glad to see and ready to own it.' 



THE ARMENIAN EXEGESIS. 



251 

i 



President Edwards furnished the Doctor with such information, 
and afforded him a fine opportunity to make this promise good, 
but it continued in statu quo. 

Edwards, in the conclusion of his own work, offers some highly 
important and impressive remarks on the whole subject, which, if 
our space permitted, we should be glad to transfer to our pages. 
Our readers, however, will, we trust, take some opportunity to give 
them a perusal. We add only a brief specimen. He says: "On 
the whole, I observe there are some other things besides argu- 
ments in Dr. Taylor's book which are calculated to influence the 
minds and bias the judgment of some sorts of readers. Here, not 
to insist on the profession he makes, in many places, of sin- 
cerity, etc., nor on his magisterial assurance, ap- 
pearing on many occasions, and the high contempt he sometimes 
expresses of the opinions and arguments of very excellent divines 
and fathers in the Church of God, who have thought differently 
from him — both of which it is not unlikely may have some degree 
of influence on some of his readers — I would take notice of another 
thing," etc. And after showing how the most unreasonable and 
extravagant interpretations are (sought to be) palliated and recom- 
mended "by such writers," he adds: '''But I humbly conceive that 
their interpretations — particularly of the apostle Paul's writings — 
though in some things ingenious, are in many things extremely 
absurd and demonstrably disagreeable in the highest degree to his 
real design, to the language he commonly uses, and to the doc- 
trines currently taught in his epistles. Their criticisms, when ex- 
amined, appear far more subtle than solid; and it seems as if 
nothing can be strong enough, nothing perspicuous enough, in any 
composure whatever, to stand before such liberties as these writers 
indulge." We offer, in conclusion, a brief remark or two: 

Remarks. 

Such, then, is the design, paternity, development, and applica- 
tion of the exegesis, which Dr. Hodge has reproduced and em- 
ployed, and still defends and insists upon as essential to an intelli- 
gent understanding and reception of the gospel, and of the evan- 
gelical or Calvinistic system of truth. I say, paternity, though 
some of the fo recited writers claim to trace it to several of the 
Greek fathers, who, themselves, however, did not receive the doc- 



252 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



trine of original sin, a subject to which attention will be given 
presently. It was likewise, however, accepted and elaborated into 
its existing form by Ostorodus and Socinus, for refuting that doc- 
trine, and still later was, as we have shown, urged and insisted on 
by the Arminians and Semi-Pelagians, for the like purpose. 
While from first to last of this its reproduction, it has been re- 
futed and rejected with one voice by the Calvinistic church. And 
thus the matter continued until Dr. Hodge, with not the slightest 
intimation of its actual paternity and subsequent application or 
employment, saw proper to rule out the long-standing exception 
to it, and both to adopt and inculcate it as not only consistent with 
the Calvinistic theology, but as vital to it, and fundamentally 
necessary to any true and intelligent reception of that system of 
doctrine. It, of course, devolves not on me to explain this pro- 
cedure, or why, without any notification as to its previous design 
and use, he should present this exegesis with the theory based 
upon it to our Church and ministry as the accredited Augustinian 
exposition, even while purporting to expound that very doctrine 
which it was emphatically the design of every previous employ-, 
ment and application of it to destroy. It would be painful to attri- 
bute the procedure to a defective knowledge as to the true state 
of the case, or to a design to revolutionize our theology by sub- 
stituting the Socinian notion of representation and the covenant, 
for that which is recognized in the system of grace; and yet I am 
free to state that without a moment's hesitation I would accept 
either of these solutions rather than admit either the ignoble plea 
that such a procedure is only carrying forward to its proper 
sequences "the strength of the Calvinistic system, especially of 
that type of Reformed theology known as the federal or represen- 
tative system," 1 or allow the cherished doctrines of our com- 
munion to be authoritatively subjected to such a subversion and 
impeachment as must inevitably be inaugurated if this wholly un- 
sustained and pernicious attempt to pervert the teaching of the 
apostle be accepted by our denomination. But this is a matter 
which pre-eminently pertains to the official action of the Church 
herself; and in view of that fact I shall here proceed, with all 
possible brevity, and as introductory to the next topic in the dis- 

1 See, as already referred to, the Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton 
Review for 1872, page 789. 



THE EXEGESIS AND JUSTIFICATION. 



253 



cussion, to invite attention to the results of such a procedure as 
affecting the analogy of faith throughout the whole system of 
Christian theology. The subject is very extensive, and we can 
here advert to only a few of its more salient features. But the 
reference will itself be suggestive, and other topics no less im- 
portant must necessarily come up in the sequel for consideration 
in other connections. 

§ 22. The Exegesis as Employed and Applied by Dr. Hodge 
Reverses the Connection between Regeneration and Justi- 
fication. 

The question whether the exegesis in question may be sustained 
on the recognized principles of hermeneutics will receive its full 
meed of attention in Section 25. The point now directly before 
us is, its relation to the analogy of faith, or to the approved the- 
ology of the Augustinian churches. We have already shown that 
it has always been repudiated by the Church as peculiar to the 
oppugners of her doctrines. And even if an individual case might 
be claimed as exceptional on behalf of both theory and exegesis, 
the Church is not responsible as such for the vagaries and specula- 
tions of individual members, as no man has ever more pointedly 
insisted on (in former years) than Dr. Hodge himself. The point 
now in view, therefore, relates simply to his assumption and incul- 
cation of this theory and its legitimate sequences as fundamental 
to the Protestant theology, and his denial of the Calvinistic sound- 
ness of those who refuse to acquiesce in such an assumption. 

The connection between regeneration and justification, as exhib- 
ited in the evangelical system, is vital to that system, and cannot 
be disturbed without fatally impairing the integrity of the whole 
as entertained and defended by the Augustinian Church. This is 
too obvious to need to be dwelt upon. And that the view pre- 
sented by Dr. Hodge, in his employment and application of this 
exegesis, does reverse the proper connection between these doc- 
trines he himself is compelled to admit, though it does, in fact, 
result so plainly from the premises that any attempt at denial 
would be futile ; for, in order to carry out his exegesis, logical 
consistency obliges him to regard the depravity and moral pollu" 
tion of the race as a consequence of Adam's personal transgression, 
or (as he prefers to name it) peccatum alienum. The posterity, 



254 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



says he, had no subjective ill-desert or moral pollution ; these, by 
the divine sentence of imputation, result to them for or on account 
of Adam's personal sin, irrespective of any subjective criminality 
on their part. And so likewise in respect to the righteousness of 
Christ. We are (says he, and justly,) wholly without subjective 
merit or desert, and the imputation of His righteousness is gratui- 
tous. But he adds, that the inseparable consequence of this im- 
putation is the bestowment of a new or regenerate nature. The 
parallel, as claimed by Dr. Hodge, of course demands this. So- 
that the seed of Christ are regenerated as an inseparable conse- 
quence of the imputation to them of His personal righteousness, as 
the seed of Adam became morally depraved and corrupt as the in- 
separable consequence of the imputation to them of his personal 
sin. 

Dr. Hodge, perceiving no possible method by which to avoid 
the former of these sequences while he maintains the latter, and 
while insisting that the modes of communication are (in Rom. v.) 
an essential part of the analogy in the comparison between the first 
and second Adam, does not shrink from the conclusion, but affirms 
it in the most decided and peremptory manner. For example, in 
a passage already cited by us in other connections, he says, " The 
main part in the analogy between Christ and Adam, as presented 
in the theology of the Protestant Church, and as exhibited by the 
apostle, is that, as in the case of Christ, His righteousness, as 
something neither done by us nor wrought in us, is the judicial 
ground of our justification, with which inward holiness is con- 
nected as an invariable consequence ; so in the case of Adam, his 
offence, as something out of ourselves, a peccatum alienum, is the 
judicial ground of the condemnation of the race, of which condem- 
nation spiritual death or inward corruption is the expression and 
the consequence. It is this principle which is fundamental to the 
Protestant theology, and to the evangelical system in the form in 
which it is presented in the Bible, which is strenuously denied by 
Dr. Baird, and also by the advocates of the doctrine of mediate 
imputation." 1 And this statement, as remarked by us in a pre- 
vious section, he presents very frequently, reasserting it substan- 
tially also in his Revised Commentary, and likewise in his The- 
ology ; so that not only the principle itself necessitates the dogma 
1 See Princeton Review for I860, page 341. 



THE EXEGESIS AND JUSTIFICATION. 



255 



that regeneration or inherent holiness is the consequence of justifi- 
cation, but the dogma itself is thus directly affirmed by Dr. Hodge 
as f imdamental to the Protestant theology, and to the evangelical 
system as taught in the word of God. 

The principle referred to is, indeed, "fundamental" to Dr. 
Hodge's theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin ; but it nowhere 
exists, either in or in connection with the doctrine of imputation, 
as taught by the evangelical Protestant church, either in her Con- 
fessions or in the writings of her representative divines. And in 
respect to it, therefore, my first remark is, that this principle, by 
reversing the connection between regeneration and justification y 
wholly subverts the doctrine of justification by faith alone. 

The doctrine of justification, as entertained by the Reformed 
church and presented in their standards, and as taught by all her 
leading divines, is, that the penitent, though ungodly sinner, by 
believing in or accepting Jesus Christ as his only Saviour from sin 
and its curse, obtains pardon and the imputation of his justifying 
righteousness: that is, he is justified. This, his faith, brings him 
into vital union with Christ, who, having promised to accept and 
save all who thus trust him, makes good the promise in every such 
case; so that the believing penitent is, accordingly, delivered from 
a state of condemnation and introduced into a state of favor and 
salvation. Such is the invariable teaching of the Calvinistic church. 
And with precisely the same unanimity, she teaches, likewise^ that 
this faith, by which the penitent accepts of Jesus as his Saviour, 
is a result of the renewal of his nature by the Holy Spirit, which 
renewal is mentioned in our standards as effectual calling, or re- 
generation. On each of these great and vital points the unanimity 
of the Church has always been as full and perfect as on the truth of 
the doctrine of the Trinity itself, or the Godhead of Christ, or on 
any other fundamental fact of her theology. And any modifica- 
tion of her doctrine on either of those points must (as no compe- 
tent theologian of well-balanced mind would question), result in 
essentially changing by inexorable logical sequence, the whole 
scope and tenor of her doctrinal system. But Dr. Hodge's theory 
makes this faith (technically called saving or justifying faith), by 
which the penitent accepts the promise and is justified, either an ex- 
ercise of the soul anterior to regeneration , or an exercise of the soul 
subsequent to justification ; for he affirms that inward holiness is 



256 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

the invariable consequence of justification, as the inherent moral 
pollution of the race is the inseparable consequence of the impu- 
tation of Adam's personal sin. But take it either way, that is, let 
this faith be regarded as an exercise of the soul anterior to regener- 
ation, or an exercise of the soul subsequent to justification, and the 
great Protestant doctrine of justification by faith alone is utterly 
sacrificed and destroyed. 

Such, then, are the facts; nor do they require to be dwelt upon. 
But what say our standards and their accredited expositors to a 
speculation like this % A page may very well be appropriated here 
to the few citations which will settle the question: 

1. The Confession of Faith. 

" Man, by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all ability 
of will to any spiritual good accompanying salvation ; so, as a nat- 
ural man, being altogether averse from that which is good, and 
dead in sin, is not able by his own strength to convert himself, or 
to prepare himself thereunto." 1 (Chapter IX. § 3.) This being the 
fact, in what sense could he be said to exercise saving faith ante- 
rior to his possession of inward holiness ? 

. " The effectual call is of God's free and special grace alone, not 
for anything at all foreseen in man, who is altogether passive 
therein, until, being quickened and renewed by the Holy Spirit, he 
is thereby enabled to answer this call, and to embrace the grace 
offered and conveyed by UP (Chapter X., § 2.) " Faith thus re- 
ceiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the alone in- 
strument of justification, yet is not alone in the person justified, 
but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no 
dead faith, but worketh by love." (Chapter XI., § 2.) (Compare, 
also Larger Catechism, Questions 66-73.) 

2. I'he Shorter Catechism. 

In answer to Question 31, effectual calling is defined as " the 
work of God's Spirit, whereby, convincing us of our sin and mis- 
ery, enlightening our minds in the knowledge of Christ, and re- 
newing our wills, he doth persuade and enable us to embrace Jesus 
Christ, freely offered tons in the gospel P To the 32nd Question 
{" What benefits do they that are effectually called partake of in 
this life ?") it is answered, that " They that are effectually called 
do in this life partake of justification, adoption, sanctification," 
etc. In what way, then, can effectual calling, or the imparting of 



THE EXEGESIS AND JUSTIFICATION. 



257 



inward holiness, be an. " inseparable consequence of justification?" 
But let us hear a few of the popular expositors of this symbol. 

3. Fisher, in explaining the question, says : "Q. 4. What is the 
connection between effectual calling and justification ? A. In ef- 
fectual calling, -sinners being united to Christ, by faith, have 
thereby communion with Sim in his righteousness, for justification. 
(Phil. iii. 9.)" 

4. Brown. " Q. What blessings do believers share of in this 
life ? A. Of justification, adoption, sanctification, and such bless- 
ings as in this life flow from them.. (Rom. 8.) Q. How are the 
benefits which believers receive from Christ connected with effec- 
tual calling ? A. They all flow from our union with Christ, ob- 
tained in UP 

5. Pater son, in his analysis and proofs of this question, says: 
" We are here taught: 1. That they who are effectually called 
partake of justification. (Rom. viii. 30: Whom he called, them 
he also justified.)" 1 

6. So, likewise, " The Key to the Shorter Catechising in its "exer- 
cise" on this question, says: "Who partake of justification and the 
other benefits there mentioned ? They who are effectually called." 

7. Matthew Henry's exposition is the same. Referring to the 
effectually called, he says: "Are they justified % Yes: Whom he 
called he also justified." 

I advert to these little manuals, all of them favorites in our 
American church, to evince what is the doctrine hitherto incul- 
cated as the teaching of our standards. And such are, and ever 
have been, the inculcations of the Calvinistic church. And, more- 
over, she has always pronounced the contrary doctrine — that effec- 
tual calling, or inward holiness, as wrought by the Holy Ghost, is 
"the consequence" of justification— a fundamental and fatal error, 
and regarded it as subversive of the whole doctrine of justification 
by faith alone. 

It can amount to nothing, so far as arresting the progress of this 
grievous error is concerned, that Dr. Hodge has elsewhere incul- 
cated different views; for example, when treating formally of 
justification and regeneration. For, while the fact remains that he 
never has retracted, and (while he holds his theory) never can re- 

1 This and the work next following are issued by Carter & Brothers, New 
York. 

17 



258 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



tract the view here referred to, and that it still is affirmed by him to 
be taught by the apostle, and to be fundamental to the Protestant 
theology and to the evangelical system, as announced in the word 
of God, this, of course, must be regarded as his real view, and auy 
deviation from it on his part a mere inadvertence. He has, there- 
fore, not only strongly asserted this error, but vehemently insists 
on it as so fully involved in the apostle's analogy in Rom. v. 12— 
21, that, unless it be recognized as therein inculcated, the whole 
analogy is destroyed. The Church, therefore, is thus presented 
with the alternative of either. admitting that she has been from the 
first — and on this great cardinal point, so inseparably connected 
with the whole doctrine of salvation — in vital or fundamental er- 
ror, or of promptly and effectually disclaiming the deadly antag- 
onism to her cherished faith, and along therewith the whole of that 
exegesis upon which it is assumed to stand : that is, if she would be 
true to God and to herself, and to the souls of men whose salva- 
tion this flagrant departure from God's truth must, in its effects,, 
greatly imperil, by recognition in our midst. 
Our second point is that 

§ 23. This Exegesis Involves the Doctrine of Eternal Justi- 
fication. 

In my previous essay Dr. Hodge's attention was solicited to the 
fact that his principles of exposition, as applied by himself to Rom. 
v. 12-21, must involve, by rigid logical sequence, the principle 
which underlies that most pestiferous heresy, " eternal justifica- 
tion," 1 against which the Church has repeatedly uttered the voice of 
solemn protest and earnest disclaimer. I was sufficiently sanguine 
to suppose that this consideration had really escaped his notice, 
and, moreover, to hope that the exposure of the fact so plainly 
made, together with a due consideration of the sad consequences 
which must accrue to our theology and to religion itself from any 
authorized inculcation of the pestilent heresy, might not be wholly 
void of effect in inducing a reinvestigation of the unauthorized 
assumptions in hermeneutics which led to the occupancy of such 
a position, and which must, if persisted in, present to the Church 
(as above stated) the alternative of either abandoning the theology 
which she has ever cherished and defended, or of inaugurating 
1 See Danville Review for 1862, pp. 84-86. 



ETEEXAL JUSTIFICATION. 



259 



the requisite steps to purify herself from this error, which will 
"eat as doth a gangrene." And our readers will, I trust, bear 
with me if the adequate presentation of this important point may 
require a range somewhat more extensive than the previous one, 
as well as a brief reference to a fact or two already elicited. For 
it seems necessary, in order to bring forward the subject in its 
proper relations to our theme, and especially in view of the in- 
timation which has been given that this foundation of the error 
has been recognized in the approved Calvinistic doctrine. 

After several of those divines who, at and subsequent to the 
sessions of the Synod of Dort, received the appellation of supralap- 
sarians, had assumed a position in relation to the will of God which 
clearly militated against the recognized theology, and their re- 
finements in speculation had not encountered the disapprobation to 
which they were entitled, several of the less conspicuous, as Lub- 
bertus, and still later, Cloppenburgh, threw out the intimation that 
Adam's sin alone was imputed to the race — using the term imputa- 
tion in a forensic rather than ethical sense, which was a departure 
from the Church usage of the term in such connection, yet still 
maintaining (rather mystically) that the first sin was common to 
Adam and the race, and that the race somehow or other subject- 
ively merited the imputation: so that, strictly speaking, the im- 
putation was not that of a purely foreign sin, or jpeccatum alienum^ 
but in some way had reference to subjective ill-desert in the 
posterity. This further appears from the fact that they ventured 
not to depart from the earlier statement, that inherent sin and im- 
puted sin are alike vere jpeccatum. But how the merely personal 
sin of Adam should be vere jpeccatum in his posterity, and they be 
subjectively guilty by having it charged upon them, or of being 
juridically accused of it (if such were indeed their meaning), was 
a secret which they appear never to have felt at perfect liberty to 
disclose. They could not avowedly abandon the recognized 
formula that imputed sin is truly sin, and could not but admit, 
moreover, that to maintain that a merely forensic imputation of 
Adam's personal sin rendered the race subjectively corrupt, would 
be logically to constitute God the author or originator of that 
corruption; and here ivas the dilemma. Rollock/however, who, 
like many others, was more inclined to theological speculation 
than adapted to it (and who took the ground subsequently assumed 



260 ORIGINAL SHST X AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

also by Twisse, of rejecting the distincton between the positive 
and permissive decrees of God 1 ), had previously come to the as- 
sistance of such by endeavoring to inaugurate the bold hypothesis, 
that " The apostasy in itself and per se was good, as likewise the 
privation of original righteousness, because it is a thing in nature, 
and a consequent of that apostasy. This privation, I say, is from 
God, and is in itself good. To conclude: that positive quality 
which succeeds to the place of holiness and of the divine image 
is from God as the efficient principle, and is good per se; 2 a 
dogma which Dr. John Taylor likewise incorporated with his 
theory of original sin, 3 and which seems, unless I err, to have 
found favor, likewise, with the late ' Dr. Taylor of New Haven ; 
and which is but a legitimate sequence from the Socinian notion 
of a gratuitous imputation of sin. This monstrous idea was but 
the logical outgrowth of supralapsarian speculation, though ftol- 
lock himself was only in part a supralapsarian. "God produced 
it," continues he, "by His own efficient operation, and God can 
produce only that which is good, and therefore sin is a positive 
good thus anticipating " the best possible system " of some later 
divines. This speculation, however, only rendered the darkness 
more visible, and the " confusion worse confounded," and could in 
no possible way relieve the emergency. And as De Moor justly 
remarks, it was utterly disclaimed and discarded by the Church. 

Several of the theologians above referred to, therefore, approxi- 
mated (though they did not recognize) that theory of gratuitous 
imputation w r hich Dr. Hodge claims to be taught in Rom. v. ; f or 
it seemed, incidentally, to lend a helping 'hand to their view of 
reprobation, as pertaining to the race in its unfallen condition. 
Very few, however, went to the extent that Eollock had gone in 
asserting that sin is a positive good; and the churches of the Re- 
formation with one voice denounced as a calumny the accusation 
that their doctrine in any sense, either directly or by imputation, 
constituted God the author of sin. And those divines who subse- 

1 His words are, " Nam omnia media, sive ea faciat ipse Deus, sive ea per- 
mittat a malis instruments fieri, primo loco et destinantur a Deo, diriguntur 
ad gloriam misericordias," etc. 

2 See Rollock's Works, Vol. I., 172-177, (Edinburgh, 1849) ; and Voetii 
Selectee Disputationes, Tom. I., p. 1091. (Ultrajecti, 1648.) 

3 See his work on Original Sin, ut supra, pp. 252, 253. 



ETERNAL JUSTIFICATION. 



261 



quently — that is. after Cocceius T1669) had elaborated his system 
of the Covenants — were led to allow a precedence to the federal 
relation over the natural in the matter of imputation, still regarded 
the imputation of the first sin as in no proper sense the imputation 
of only Adam's personal guilt, but recognized the first sin as the 
sin of both Adam and his seed ; while even the supralapsarians, 
as a body, steadfastly affirmed the subjective guilt of the race, 
and in their theology still claimed the formula natura eorrumpit 
personam as expressive of their views, 1 and that the race was not 
innocent of subjective guilt when the xplp.a eh xardxptfta passed upon 
it. Nor is there anything remarkable in this; for the decided 
condemnation of the theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin by 
the whole evangelical communion when the Papists, Pighius and 
Catharinus, advanced it in the Council of Trent, and still later 
when inculcated by the Socinian and Remonstrant schools, ren- 
dered it next to impossible that the sentiment should be accepted 
by any Augustinian divine without forfeiting all just- claims to 
soundness of doctrine. So that Dr. Hodge is utterly and inex- 
cusably mistaken in his intimation that the early Church is, in 
any sense of the term, responsible for this monstrous feature of 
his theory ; nor can he sustain the allegation by any reference to 
legitimate facts. If found at all within her borders, it is only as 
other results of illegitimate speculation may be found (as, for ex- 
ample, in the case of Szydlovius -) , and which it would be the 
highest degree of injustice to attribute to the Church, herself. 
But let us now proceed to the main point of this section. 

We have already seen that the Doctor claims to find the gratui- 
tous imputation of sin in Pornans v., and that, moreover, this im- 
putation is analogous to the imputation of the righteousness of 
the Second Adam to his spiritual-seed. This imputation of right- 
eousness is, he informs us, forensic, and not a conmmunication of 
inherent righteousness (which is true), but inherent righteousness, 
or, more properly, inward holiness, or regeneration, is the effect or 
consequence of this forensic imputation (which is not true): so that 
regeneration being the consequence of justification, the sinner is 
forensically justified before inward holiness, or regeneration, is 

1 See instances in the Danville Review for 1862. pp. 268. 269. 

2 See in Danville Review for 1861, pp. 567-570. some account of this writer 
and his theological speculations. 



262 



OKIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



imparted to him by the Holy Ghost, in like manner as the poster- 
ity of Adam are forensically condemned before God inflicts upon 
tKem the penalty of moral corruption. If this be so, therefore, 
then of course justification is not, and cannot be, by faith; for 
the unregenerate cannot exercise saving or justifying faith. I 
refer to this once more, not only to prepare the way for the sub- 
joined considerations respecting eternal justification, but likewise 
for the purpose of pressing the inquiry, On what ground does the 
imputation of righteousness take place? According to the theory 
before us, it is not an imputation to the believer ; for being unre- 
generate, he is not a believer, and does not become such until after 
the imputation itself takes place, ' inward holiness being the in- 
variable consequence of justification,' precisely as inherent corrup- 
tion is the consequence of the imputation to us of Adam's peccatum 
alienum. Thus obvious and undeniable is it that this exegesis 
and theory alike present the alternative of either admitting the 
fatal delusion that saving faith is not exercised until after justifi- 
cation, or that it is exercised anterior to regeneration; and in 
either case the doctrine of our standards (and of all the Confes- 
sions of the churches of the Reformation) on this and its core- 
lated truths is, of course, sacrificed. 

Let our readers, then, observe, in the first place, that the doc- 
trine of eternal justification is an essential feature of the gospel- 
subverting theory of Antinomianism. We present to them a few 
facts which will make the truth of this statement sufficiently ap- 
parent. 

In the " Declaration, of the Congregational Ministers in and 
about London against Antinomian Errors" etc., 1 to which tractate 
are appended the names with the recommendation of Matthew 
Mead, George Griffith, John Nesbit, and other eminent divines, 
and which declaration was made from " the apprehension that the 
doctrine of Christ's satisfaction and our justification are in danger," 
and which " in a brotherly way endeavored that they (those doc- 
trines) be explained and owned as commonly held by the Re- 
formed," both at home and on the Continent ; they specify first 
" the errors," and then "the rejection" of them. Our space will 
not allow that we quote the whole catalogue, but amongst the errors 
are the following : 

1 I quote the Second Edition. (London, 1699.) 



ETERXAL JUSTIFICATION. 



263 



" § 1. That the eternal decree gives such an existence to the 
justification of the elect as makes their estate whilst in unbelief to 
he the sam,e as vjhen they do believe in all respects, save only as to 
the manifestation, and that there is no other justification by faith 
but what is in their consciences." 

"§ 11. That by God's laying our sins upon Christ He became 
every way as sinful as we, and we every way as righteous and holy 
as He ; and that therefore persons may expect to be pardoned, whilst 
they continue in a state of tinbelief and impeniteyice, and that con- 
tinued repentance and holiness are not, in the nature of the thing 
nor by the constitution of the gospel, necessary to our being pos- 
sessed of eternal life." (Pages 7—11.) 

These are the first and last in this summary of errors, and to 
a logical mind the acceptance of the first will prepare the way for 
the adoption of the whole series ; for error, not less than truth, 
has its system of logical concatenation. 

The obvious occasion (though not so stated) of issuing this trac- 
tate was the then recent publication of a little work " by P. Davis, 
Pastor of the Church at Powell," entitled a " Vindication of the 
Doctrine of Justification and Union before Faith, etc., and the 
Eternal Justification and Union of the Lord's Chosen People is 
plainly Stated and Produced." (London, 1698.) And the author 
endeavors to sustain this detestable heresy by referring to certain 
speculations of Twisse, Putherford, and other supralapsarians 
whom Dr. Owen has so signally refuted in his work on Divine 
Justice. 1 Mr. Davis appears like a good man, and occasionally 
argues with considerable ingenuity ; and although his propositions 
generally are in a high degree sophistical, his work is well calcu- 
lated to mislead the unwary. He defines eternal justification to 
be, " God's eternal will and decree not to punish the elect sinner, 
though he would transgress ; and His will not to punish is for- 
mally pardon 'Tis, I grant you, His decree ; but this de- 
cree is such an act of pardon that has its fidl completeness in itself 
from eternity before the elect bega?i to have a being, etc., even as 
the act of election or reprobation. {Mr. Rutherford, gr. Pag.) 
This act doth no more presuppose the existence of its object than 
election doth." 

" Again, I think eternal justification is the eternal good pleasure 
1 Works, Vol. IX., pp. 319, seq. (London, 1826.) 



264 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of His will that the elect should be completely righteous in the 
righteousness of another, viz. : His Son Jesus, and this is a com- 
plete judicial act, eternal and immanent, as Mr. Rutherford affirms."' 
(Pages 8, 9.) 

"3. God will not declare persons righteous but those that are 
so in some real sense or other, for the judgment of God is accord- 
ing to truth ; therefore the making of persons righteous is as ne- 
cessary an ingredient unto justification as the declaring them to be 
so. And they are made righteous in the sight of justice only by 
imputation, as before proved. 4. The acts of God's secret will 
may have the same name with those of His revealed. .... So 
His eternal act is called His election, and in like manner His tem- 
porary act too. And why not His will to declare sinners righteous 
upon account of another's righteousness be called His imputation 
of righteousness, and consequently His justification of them ?" 

He then, on page 25, pointedly denies that " faith justifies in- 
strumentally" which denial is, of course, a just sequence of his 
doctrine. And if, as Dr. Hodge so peremptorily insists, inward 
holiness is the invariable consequence of the imputation of right- 
eousness, or justification, this must indeed be so. The author, then 
referring to a Mr. B., says that, if faith is the instrument, " there 
would be no avoiding the force of Mr. B.'s argument, viz. : If 
faith justifies instrumentally, 'tis either as God's instrument or 
man's ; if as God's, then it must follow that 'tis God believes in jus- 
tifying a sinner ; if as man's, that man justifies himself, and not 
God ; both which are horrid blasphemies." But let the above suffice 
for this wretched outcropping of supralapsarian speculation. 

To what extent this doctrine may be regarded as sustained by 
the affirmation of Dr. Hodge, that inward holiness is consequent 
upon the imputation of righteousness, is, we think, sufficiently ap- 
parent, since there neither is, nor in the nature of things can there 
be, any real practical difference between maintaining that a soul is 
justified before he believes — that is, while in a state of unbelief — 
and maintaining that he is justified from eternity ; for in both cases 
alike the doctrine of justification by faith alone is utterly annulled. 
And then further, the principle itself is frequently taught in his 
writings, both directly and by implication, as, for example, when, 
after averring that the ground of our justification, or rather of the 
imputation of the Redeemer's righteousness, is our union with Christ, 



ETERNAL JUSTIFICATION. 



265 



lie names this union " the eternal federal union." Our meaning may 
be perceived by the subjoined passage, which, in its general tone, is 
not only not exceptionable, but really in conflict with the dogma 
that inward holiness is consequent upon the imputation of righteous- 
ness, and of course in antagonism to his exposition of the analogy 
in E,om. v. ; but in the phraseology " eternal federal union " is, 
nevertheless, extremely incautious in such a connection. He 
says, " The ground of our justification is our union with Christ, or 
rather our union with Christ is the ground of that imputation of 
His righteousness for which we are justified. And that union is 
three-fold: 1. The eternal federal union arising from the gift of 
God of a people to His Son, whom He represents, and for whom 
He obeyed and suffered ; 2. The inward mystical union arising 
from the indwelling of the Holy Ghost ; and 3. The union by 
faith. Now, in virtue of the eternal federal union, and in accord- 
ance with the conditions of the covenant of redemption, God in 
His own good time sends His Spirit in the hearts of His people, 
calls forth the exercise of faith (if they be adults) , imputes to them 
the righteousness of Christ, adopts them into His family, and 
works in them to will and to do according to His own good plea- 
sure. ~No man, therefore, is justified who is not a living member 
of Christ's body ; but his spiritual life is neither his justifying 
righteousness nor the ground of his title to the righteousness of 
Christ." 1 

TTe have stated that the forespecified phrase is incautious, for it 
presents an idea in connection with the doctrine of justification 
which, as the preceding extracts show, is fundamental to the 
Antinomian hypothesis. Xor is it the approved language of the 
Augustinian theology in such connection. And then, moreover, 
it is too obvious to require argument that if real or actual union — 
an " eternal union " — a non-existing object may be predicated of 
a mere purpose to grant possession of that object when it shall be 
brought into existence ; then, of course, the justification which is 
the result of such union may be equally predicated. And this, in 
fact, is really all that the Antinomians contend for on that point ; 
for if the union, say they, be eternal, so likewise must the justifi- 
cation be which is based thereon. Grant them but the premise 
that such language is accurate and proper, and their conclusion is 

1 Princeton Review for 1860, pages 766, 767. 



266 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



inevitable. Of coarse, then, regeneration must be but a conse- 
quence of this eternal justification, as it can take effect only in 
time, and after the subject of it has been created, for a non-entity 
cannot be regenerated. So true it is that the adoption of one 
leading principle of an erroneous system must logically tend to the 
recognition of the whole. 

In his Theology, however, Dr. Hodge assumes a still higher and 
more decided position, of which a single illustration will suffice; 
though before presenting it we must call attention to an incidental 
allusion to it which requires a remark. In referring to the Re- 
formed divines who opposed Placseus, he affirms that their stren- 
uous opposition to his doctrine was because "they saw and said 
that on his principles the doctrine of the imputation of Christ's 
righteousness, antecedent to our sanctification, could not be de- 
fended;" 1 implying, of course, that those theologians did defend 
that doctrine on the ground that the imputation does take place 
antecedent to our sanctification. Now, if by sanctification here he 
refers to the progressive work of sanctification which follows re- 
generation in the renewed, then the remark is inapplicable to the 
purpose for which Dr. Hodge has offered it. For there is no- 
thing either expressed or implied in the views of Placaeus (unless 
I greatly err) which in any way conflicted with the doctrine that 
we are justified anterior to our progressive and perfected sancti- 
fication, nor has any such folly ever been attributed to him. But 
if Dr. Hodge here employs the term as equivalent to inward 
holiness or regeneration, in which sense alone it can have any re- 
levancy, then the affirmation is, without qualification, an un- 
founded misrepresentation of the doctrinal views of the theolo- 
gians referred to, whose unvarying sentiment was that we are justi- 
fied by faith, and that this faith is the fruit of the Spirit ; that is, 
it is the exercise of our already regenerated mind and heart. 
They never even vary from this statement, for the fact itself is 
fundamental to their whole system of doctrine. In what way, 
then, could they have undertaken, as Dr. Hodge alleges, to defend 
the theory that the imputation of righteousness is antecedent to 
•our inward holiness or regeneration, when their unvarying doc- 
trine was that the faith which must always precede that imputa- 
tion is itself the result of regeneration? Dr. Hodge, in attribut- 

1 Theology, Vol. II., p. 213. 



ETERNAL JUSTIFICATION. 



267 



ing to them the contrary, had simply yielded to the influence of 
his own dogma, that inward holiness is a consequent of justifica- 
tion. And it is hut another illustration of his unaccountable and 
perpetual misconception of the teaching of the Augustinian di- 
vines. 

The doctrine itself, however, is plainly asserted by him in the 
following passage : " It was by the disobedience of one man that 
all men are constituted sinners, not only by imputation (which is 
true and most important), but also by inherent depravity, as it 
"was by the obedience of one that all are constituted righteous, 
not only by imputation (which is true and vitally important), but 

ALSO BY THE CONSEQUENT RENEWING- OF THEIR NATURE flovAng from 

their reconciliation to God? 1 Thus the renewal of their nature 
is made to be consequent upon the imputation of righteousness, 
and to flow from their reconciliation to God, as though they could, 
as the Antinomians likewise affirm, be reconciled to God before 
being renewed ! And thus we are again brought to the conclu- 
sion, that either we are justified anterior to faith (and so must sur- 
render the doctrine of justification by faith alone), or that justify- 
ing faith may be exercised by the unregenerate, and so renounce 
the. Augustinian doctrine of depravity for the Pelagian scheme. 

Such decided reiteration of this dogma, after his attention had 
been so specifically called to the subject, evinces this to be Dr. 
Hodge's deliberately formed and cherished view. In fact, to re- 
linquish it would, as stated above, necessitate the abandonment of 
his exposition of Rom. v. 12-21 ; and for this, as our readers have 
doubtless perceived, he is in no way prepared. But instead of 
here dwelling upon and further discussing eternal justification 
itself, I shall conclude the section by presenting in brief the deli- 
neation and refutation of that doctrine as furnished in an official 
deliverance of the Dutch Reformed Synod in our country, and 
which by their appointment was drawn up by that truly learned 
and eminent theologian, the late Dr. John M. Mason, in July, 
1798, and adopted in full session. 2 

In defining justification they say : " This justification is an act, 
and is therefore completed at once. It is necessarily an act, be- 

1 See his Theology, Vol. IT., p. 249. 

2 See the Works of John M. Mason, D. D., Vol. III., pp. 317, seq. (Xew 
York, 1832.) 



268 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



cause it is a legal sentence ; and an act cannot be progressive : this 
is the property of a work." (Pp. 335, 336.) 

"Hence, it is apparent that personal justification takes place in 
the moment of believing, and not before. But as this part of the 
doctrine of justification has been recently and boldly denied within 
the bounds of the Synod, they judge it their duty briefly to con- 
firm it, and to bear their testimony against the contrary error." 

"It is not righteousness as imputed merely that justifies, but as 

received cdso. On this the Scriptures lay peculiar stress. 

Now the righteousness of Christ is not mine till I accept it as the 
Father's gift, which I do in believing. Before believing, therefore, 
I have no righteousness to offer to the 'claims of the law, and con- 
sequently neither am nor can be justified. Therefore, justi- 
fication cannot take place before believing." (Pp. 337, 338.) 

" Justification, therefore, before believing, is impossible. It 
exhibits a monster which the Bible cannot know — a justified un- 
believer." (P. 339.) 

"However plain and peremptory the Scriptural doctrine on this 
point, there are not wanting some to corrupt and oppose it by 
teaching, not only that justification precedes believing, but that the 
elect were justified, saved, from eternity." (P. 341.) 

" If, as is alleged, the will to justify is justification, as the will 
to elect is election, it is certain that the will to create is creation; 
the will to sanctify, sanctification ; the will to save, salvation ; so 
that men were created, sanctified, saved, from eternity." (V. 341.) 

" If the elect were justified from eternity, in virtue of their be- 
ing from eternity in Christ by covenant representation, it must 
follow, either that they never were in Adam as a head of con- 
demnation, or else that they were condemned in Adam after their 
justification in Christ." (P. 342.) 1 

These few extracts from this truly excellent paper will suffice';, 
and their application to the theory that " inward holiness is a conse- 

1 Voetius thus refers to the same topic : V. Prob. Am decrehim jastifica- 
tionis partem aut momentum aliquod faciat in ipsa justiftcatione t 

Resp. Neg. Neque enim confundi debeat vocatio, regeneratio, justificatio, 
adoptio aut justificatio, cum decreto; interna actio cum emanante externa; 
aut geterna cum temporaria ; aut decretum seu voluntas Dei cum executione 
et re volita : quod exemplo decreti executionis. aut decreti salvationis declarar 1 
potest ; qua3 ab ipsa creatione, et ab ipsa salute distinguuntur." Selectee Dis- 
putationes, Tom. V., p. 281. (Ultrajecta, 1669.) 



OTHER RESULTS. 269 

quence of justification '' is obvious. Nor would it be any reply to 
allege that Dr. Hodge has only affirmed an abstract principle, 
while the application is here made to the doctrine in the concrete; 
for we have not charged the Doctor with asserting it in thesi and 
formally. The point is, he has been led to assert its underlying 
principle in consequence of his false exegesis of Rom. v. 12-21 • 
and it is this which has, perhaps unconsciously to himself, con- 
trolled his mind to allow those recognitions of the doctrine itself 
to which we have referred, and which, unless recalled or corrected, 
must continue to operate adversely ; for there can be but little 
practical difference between inculcating a principle'and inculcating 
a doctrine which it logically sustains. And we emphatically re- 
peat, that Dr. Hodge must either abandon his exposition of the 
analogy, or be regarded as sustaining the fundamental principle of 
this pestilential heresy. 

§ 21. Other Results as Affecting still further "the Analogy 

of Faith. 

It was quite consistent with the "liberal" spirit of Socinianism 
for Mr. T. Belsham, more than half a century ago, to exclaim, 
" What childish simplicity and ignorance does it betray in some 
to feign or to feel alarmed at the tendency of those doctrines 
which are avowed by such men as Lindsey, Priestley, Hartley, and 
Jebb, and which are represented by them as lying at the founda- 
tion of all right views of the divine government, of all rational 
piety and virtuous practice, and of all rational and substantial 
consolation " ! 1 — even though the affirmation seems not very unlike 
enjoining, impliedly, an implicit faith. But whatever may be 
thought of Mr. Belsham and his views, we may here say, that the 
unrestricted prevalence of such a spirit in any evangelical com- 
munion may well be regarded as heralding the incoming of that 
judicial infatuation which is the sure precursor of its apostasy and 
spiritual death. 

There are various other considerations pertaining to the analogy 
of faith, as affected by this theory and exegesis, and which, though 
we could not call them up in the preceding sections, are intrinsi- 
cally of too much importance to be omitted, and to them the 
present section is appropriated. In fact, they may, to some extent, 
1 Memoirs of Lindsey, p. 394. 



270 



ORIGINAL SIJST AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



be regarded as suggested by the position above assumed by Mr. 
Belsham ; for a like inconsiderateness on the part of such as pro- 
fess to be friends of evangelical doctrine cannot but evince that 
they have neither sympathy with nor adequate knowledge of those 
great principles which have ever imparted to the doctrines of grace 
their distinguishing efficacy and power in awakening the sinner to 
a conviction of his lost state, and leading him to accept of mercy 
through the cross of Christ. We may sometimes, it is true, meet 
with what is regarded as sincere piety, dissociated with any just 
appreciation of the doctrines which lie at the foundation of all 
true consecration to the service of God ; but such anomalies can 
never be pleaded as precedents to justify a disregard for the fun- 
damental truths which lie at the basis of the proffer of salvation 
through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Inconsistencies such 
as these are not to be imitated or commended, but avoided. 

Pelagius, personally, had the reputation of being one of the 
most lovely and devout Christians of his day, and his warm- 
hearted piety and zeal in the service of Christ very frequently call 
forth the acknowledgment and laudation of Augustine, even when 
writing against him. His life was one continuous refutation of 
his doctrine. The life of Socinus also (though in some of his 
writings he was so abusive and arrogant), exhibited, in an unusual 
degree, a meek, humble and prayerful spirit, 1 as did also the lives 
of his two eminent followers, J. F. Crellius and Dr. Joseph 
Priestley ; and no man of his time was more honored and loved 
for his social qualities and earnest efforts to do good to his fellow- 
men than Emanuel Swedenborg. Their excellent dispositions of 
both mind and heart had, moreover, a marked influence towards 

1 The little work by Socinus, entitled De Auctoritate Sacrce Scripturce, con- 
tains an able and acute vindication of the gospel against the scepticism of his 
day, and it is easy to see that both Du Plesis, Mornay and Grrotius, have 
availed themselves of his line of argument. Its first appearance was anony- 
mous, and soon after (in 1588), it was pirated by the Spanish Jesuit, Dom 
Lopez, and published as his own, but in a manner so bungling that the 
preface affirms, respecting the natural knowledge of God, what the book it- 
self denies. In 1592 it was issued at Basil, and, after a careful examination, 
was approved (with the exception of three specified places), by the eminent 
divines of that city and university. The Unitarians and Rationalists of to- 
day may find in this little volume their main objections to the gospel not only 
anticipated by the sceptics of that period, but likewise so disposed of by So- 
cinus as to place their own pretentious assumptious entirely hors du combat. 



OTHER RESULTS. 



271 



preparing the public for a favorable estimate of their opinions. 
And the thoughtless, the undiscriininating and the servile, then 
asserted, as they still do, that certainly a man so good and so 
learned cannot be the patron of hurtful error, and that if his 
opinions are not detrimental to his own piety, they surely cannot 
be to the piety of others. And it has always been, moreover, on 
such and similar ground, that they whose conscientious convictions 
have left to them no room for doubt that it was their duty to God 
and to the souls of men to expose the error and to vindicate the 
truth, have been by the servile herd denounced as persecutors or 
defamers of good men, and as troublers of the Church. For as 
Calvin, in the introduction to his Institutes, remarks: "It is the 
nature and the destiny of the divine word never to operate with- 
out exciting the watchfulness and activity of Satan ; but this is 
the truest and the safest sign by which to distinguish it from that 
which is false. Human inventions are very easily diffused ; they 
ever meet with willing ears and are received by the world with 
grateful approbation." And hence it has ever been the policy of 
the great deceiver of souls to lead, if possible, some officially 
prominent professor of Christianity into the inculcation of ruinous 
error, that through his name and influence it might make its way 
amongst the followers of Christ. It is to this fact that the apostle 
refers when he says that Satan transforms himself into an angel 
of light. And it is, therefore, the clear and unquestionable duty 
of those to whom our Lord and Saviour has committed, instrumen- 
tally, the welfare of his flock, to consider, in every instance of the 
kind, not who is the patron of any suspicious or unusual form of 
doctrine, but what is the real nature and tendency of the principle 
itself. For it has always been the allotment of the supporters of 
essential and saving truth, especially if its practical efficacy, through 
a growing indifference to its claims, or by some unauthorized spec- 
ulation, has become, to any extent, seriously impaired, to encoun- 
ter the cunning craftiness of the great enemy of Christ's kingdom 
in the malevolent hostility of those whose sympathy with it is such 
as to allow their employment of all available resources per fas et 
per nefas, to crush and suppress it in the persons of those who 
would vindicate its claims. 1 His power is great, and his instrn- 

1 See Dr. "Witherspoon's Ecclesiastical Characteristics, "Works, Yol. III., pp.. 
209 seq. (Philadelphia, 1802.) 



'272 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

merits numerous and always unscrupulous, and the " depths " of 
his cunning unfathomable by man. And therefore the intelligent 
believer will never regard it as safe to discard a principle or doc- 
trine merely because others have disclaimed it. or to accept it simply 
on the ground that, for the time being, it may be extensively re- 
ceived. 

Whatever may be pleaded in extenuation, the fact itself cannot 
be contemplated without solicitude, that an appointed teacher in 
one of our theological schools should have set aside the recognized 
and time-honored exposition of the locus classicus of a great fun- 
damental truth — a truth, moreover, which the deadliest assailants 
of the evangelical system have always and incessantly labored to 
subvert — and that he has judged it expedient to do this, not on the 
ground that any newly discovered original manuscripts or various 
readings of the text required it, or that any alleged improvement 
in the science of hermeneutics allowed it, but for reasons the 
validity of which the Calvinistic church has always expressly 
denied and rejected ; and then to adopt the exposition of which 
those same adversaries have availed themselves during the past 
three centuries in order to invalidate and subvert that very doc- 
trine. The facts sustaining this representation have been already 
spread before the reader. But still, and we repeat it (for we 
would not be misunderstood), it is unquestionable, that even by 
councils of the Church truth has been repeatedly denounced as 
•error, and her supporters branded as heretics; and that, there- 
fore, there is no just reason to conclude that a man is the patron 
of heresy because he maintains that which a council may have dis- 
carded, or that which alleged heretics may have received, provided 
he furnish substantial, or at least plausible reasons to evince that 
the council itself was mistaken, or that the alleged errorists were 
falsely accused. But for a teacher, without assigning any such 
reasons, to go back and resuscitate from the charnel-house in 
which it had long been interred, an exposition which from the 
very first had been rejected by the Church as subversive of saving 
truth, and which had been by our adversaries resorted to for the sole 
purpose of successfully subverting a fundamental doctrine of her 
theology, and thus to take open ground with those antagonists, 
and at the same time claim to be defending that very doctrine 
• itself, is certainly a procedure which ought not to be viewed by the 



OTHER RESULTS. 



273 



Church with indulgence or indifference, but which demands and 
should receive, what it has not yet received, a satisfactory eclaircisse- 
ment. In cases far less important, doctrinally considered, the 
energies of the Church (since this century commenced) have been 
aroused to high excitement in order to arrest the progress of some 
erroneous principle. And though personally we had no great 
sympathy with the prosecutions thus instituted, and preferred 
then, and still prefer, to meet such aberrations in open field and in 
a fair hand-to-hand encounter, untrammelled by the heavy dis- 
charges of ecclesiastical ordinance, yet this must not be construed 
as indifference to the sacred claims of the truth, but simply as 
illustrative of our conviction as to the imperative duty of vigilance 
and earnestness on the part of each of God's appointed watchmen 
in regard to the faith. If, however, such efforts prove unavailing, 
and the error is still persisted in, and the errorist refuse to ex- 
plain, or advantage be taken of position, or numbers, or of both, to 
suppress the discussion, then let the constitutional provisions be 
applied, and the Church in her recognized courts be asked for a 
deliverance. 

In the instance before us, had the exegetical element been 
calmly presented, and reasons offered why the exposition, notwith- 
standing its paternity and history, was preferred, and the matter 
there left, the aspect of the case would not have been so really dis- 
tressing. It would, of course, have been painful to contemplate 
one of our professors in the attitude of enforcing such an exegesis ; 
but still, all would have conceded to him the prerogative to exer- 
cise his own judgment in view of the responsibility thereby in- 
curred. But it did not end here. Isot only must the exposition 
be disinterred, but the denunciation and sarcasm which had been 
formerly resorted to in the effort to sustain it must likewise be re- 
vived and repeated. And then, even beyond all this, and far be- 
yond all that its previous supporters had ever dreamed of claiming 
on its behalf, all who repudiate or reject it must be accused of 
fundamental error ; of taking sides with the Jews against Paul ; 
and of subverting the doctrine of justification by faith alone, and 
the whole evangelical system ; and all this under the claim of sup- 
porting and defending the very doctrine itself against which the 
exegesis was from the first arrayed. 

But passing without remark this proscriptive intolerance, sup- 

18 



274 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



pose that a military commander, appointed for the defence of a 
fortress, should move out with his platoons and artillery, and take 
position with the assailants of that fortress, place their deadly case- 
shot and canister in the guns which they had pointed against it,, 
and then, after discharging those missiles into its very midst, at- 
tempt to plead in explanation that he is defending the citadel, and 
is friendly to its supporters, how many may we suppose would 
he be likely to influence by such a plea ? Is there any reasonable 
man who would not be ready to say that he was greatly mistaken? 
We think not, whatever might be the reasons he should urge to- 
prove that he was really its friend and defender. And we should 
not hesitate to say, that if he regarded the citadel and its sup- 
porters as in the wrong, he ought not even to claim that he was 
defending it ; and if in the right, he surely ought not to treat it in 
this way. In whatever aspect, therefore, the procedure of Dr. 
Hodge may be viewed, none can doubt that it imposes upon us (as 
is suggested in the commencement of my former essay 1 ) the duty 
of thoroughly investigating the subject with which the doctrine- 
itself is concerned. I have now endeavored to perform my part 
towards securing this result by means of the leisure which Provi- 
dence (through the hostile endeavors of those who have been seek- 
ing to suppress this discussion) has afforded me, and cannot doubt 
that in so employing it 1 have fulfilled His design in its bestow- 
ment ; for in connection with the duties of my professorship, or 
of an extensive pastoral charge, it would have been long indeed 
ere I could have found time for the adequate preparation of the 
present work. 

The Socinian and Remonstrant schools, in accordance with their 
exegesis of the passage before us, wholly denied, as we have seen, 
the doctrine of our subjective guilt or criminality in the fall ; nor 
is there any point in our theology which they oppose more vehe- 
mently than this ; and, therefore, with true consistency they denied 
that the evils which came upon the race in consequence of the first 
sin were punishments, and maintained them to be purely calamities. 

They denied, denounced, and in every way ridiculed the doc- 
trine, universally held by the Augustinian churches, that we 
sinned so as ethically to appropriate subjective guilt and defile- 
ment when Adam sinned. And Dr. Hodge, in order to sup- 
1 See Danville Review for 1861, pages 390, 391. 



OTHER RESULTS. 



275 



port his exegesis, denies with equal vehemence the same doctrine, 
and in like manner pronounces it " unthinkable" And basing, as 
he does, the imputation of Adam's sin merely upon the federal 
and natural union, and without participation in the first sin, he, 
along with the school of Socinus, is necessarily, by unavoidable 
sequence, obliged to regard the consequences of the fall as mere 
calamities judicially inflicted; even as, for example, in the case of 
a person innocent of the crime for which he is punished by law. 
Such a person, even though his sufferings are judicially inflicted^ 
is merely involved in calamity, being entirely innocent of subjec- 
tive ill-desert. So, in like manner, according to this theory, we 
suffer by a judicial infliction the effects of Adam's peccatum 
alienum only. For "spiritual death," says Dr. Hodge for the 
thousandth time, "was the penal, and therefore certain, conse- 
quence of our condemnation for the sin of Adam P x And again: 
" Our obligation to suffer for Adam's sin, so far as that sin is con- 
cerned, arises solely from his being our representative, and not 
from any participation of its moral turpitude." 2 ' Thus the Soci- 
uians maintain, with Pelagius, that the sin of Adam injured no 
one but himself, except as it was made the ground or occasion 
upon which God judged it proper to inflict upon us the calamities 
of this life, while Dr. Hodge alleges that "it injured not himself 
only, but also all descending from him 'by ordinary generation;" * 

1 Theology, II., p. 538. 2 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 171. 

3 See Theology, II., p. 192. We here ask: Is the employment of such 
language another instance of an endeavor to assimilate his theory to the doc- 
trine of the Church by the employment of a phraseology which, when applied 
to the principles of that theory, is plainly unintelligible ? We have already 
adverted to several instances of the kind, and in relation to this have only to 
inquire, what can such language possibly mean as thus employed by Dr. 
Hodge ? Why attempt, in this formal style, to restrict the injury of Adam's 
sin to those " descending from him by ordinary generation " ? In what way 
did that sin, according to this theory, injure those who thus descended from 
him ? Did Adam, by his crime, so defile their nature that the imputation, or 
sentence of condemnation, finds it corrupted and depraved? Xo, says Dr. 
Hodge ; this corruption is the effect of the imputation itself, which finds their 
nature free of all subjective ill-desert. So then, the only way in which, ac- 
cording to Dr. Hodge's theory, Adam by his sin can be saia to have injured 
all descending naturally from him, is through the forensic imputation which 
God has made of it to them? And pray, was it not forensically imputed also 
to Christ ? And was He not punished for it ? Why, then, on this theory, 



276 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



but that this injury was effected through their condemnation for 
his personal sin, God having by a judicial sentence imputed it to 
them. Both allege that the calamities, of life came directly by 
the Divine appointment, and without any subjective guilt of the 
race. The Socinians, in this their denial, had direct reference to 
the Church doctrine that the first sin polluted and depraved the 
race through their participation therein; and this doctrine Dr. 
Hodge denies as stoutly as they. But yet Socinus plainly affirms 
that all who are begotten of Adam are exposed (obnoxii) to per- 
petual death, not, however, because his offence was really and 
morally theirs, but because they are begotten of him who had 
been sentenced to that penalty ; that is, because of their relation to 
him 1 : the occasion for which he does not attempt to explain any 
farther than to allege that their exposure was not for their own 
ill-desert, which point they all unite with him in vehemently dis- 
claiming. And this point, as above stated, Dr. Hodge disclaims 
just as strongly. They maintain that not Adam by his sin, but 
God by a judicial sentence, brought these calamities upon the race 
after the fall. This, too, Dr. Hodge maintains. So that the dif- 
ference between them on this most important issue consists simply 
in this: Dr. Hodge pronounces the sentence a forensic or juridical 
imputation of a peccatiwi alienum, and affirms that the evils in- 
flicted are truly penal ; while the Socinians admit the sentence to 
be forensic, though some of them, in designating it, hesitate to 
employ the term imputation lest it should be understood in the 
Church sense — an imputation of the culpa participation — and 
prefer to name the consequent evils calamities forensically result- 
ing to us, rather than penal inflictions. Dr. Hodge alleges that 
the ground for the infliction is the guilt of Adam's personal sin 
forensically imputed to or charged upon his descendants, and that 
they are thus condemned and punished for it; while the Socinians 
allege that the evils are indeed judicially inflicted through a for- 
ensic sentence of condemnation, but not so much as punishments 
as results of his disobedience, since if he had obeyed they would 

attempt to make any such restriction as this language of our standards clearly 
implies ? They#except Christ entirely from the category ; but Dr. Hodge's 
theory takes away the very ground for the exception, and places Christ and 
the race upon a perfect equality in regard to the matter. 

1 See De Servatore, Parte III., Cap. 8, Opp. Socini. Tom. II., p. 207. 



OTHER RESULTS. 



277 



never have been inflicted. Such, too, is, as we have seen, the doc- 
trine of the Remonstrants or Arminians. The amount of the dif- 
ference they may reckon who are able; for my own perception is 
not sufficiently acute to enable me to discover any practicable dis- 
tinction between the infliction of evils upon us forensically by a 
judicial sentence, and their being inflicted by a judicial sentence 
condemning us to suffer them, we being alike subjectively unde- 
serving of the infliction in either case. And yet Dr. Hodge's 
exegesis has logically compelled him to assume the position that 
such is the real amount of that great issue between the Calvinistic 
and Socinian schools, wherein the doctrine of the real expiation of 
sin has ever been regarded as so intimately concerned ! But to re- 
turn. 

It is obvious, therefore, in both cases, that these inflictions are 
not merited retributions, but merely calamities, which came upon 
the posterity simply through the sovereign pleasure of God, which. 
Dr. Hodge, indeed, affirms to be his view, 1 and which he illustrates 
in various ways; for example: We sinned in Adam, but only 
putatively, for it is impossible that we should have sinned in him 
in any other way ; and hence the imputation of his sin constituted 
us sinners, not really, but only putatively or forensically ; the effects 
of which putation are the corruption of our nature, spiritual death, 
and all the evils we here suffer. 2 And thus, in one wcrd, the 
plain logical result of this adoption of the Socinian exegesis is the 
rejection of the Calvinistic doctrine on the subject, and an ac- 
quiescence in theirs. But let us for a moment view* this sad and 
alarming fact in the light of an illustration. 

Two men have together witnessed an important and deeply in- 
teresting incident which finally becomes the subject of judicial in- 
vestigation. In delivering their testimony they agree perfectly in 
all the details as to its origin, nature, extent, and effects, so that 
their testimony is a unit throughout. As they are intelligent 
gentlemen, and the judge a little perplexed by certain features of 
the case, they are requested also to favor the court with their in- 
dividual views touching the whole affair ; whereupon one of them 
suggests a theory for the purpose of explaining all its phenomena, 

1 See the Princeton Review for 1851, page 680, and the Danville Review for 
1861. pp. 595, seqr- 

2 See his Theology, Vol. II... pp. 189-196. 



278 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



and gives to the event itself a specific name. The other, how- 
ever, says : " I perfectly concur in everything my friend has said 
touching the origin, nature, extent, and effects of this remarkable 
occurrence, but cannot agree with him as to the name proper to be 
applied to it, and should prefer some other designation." In such 
a case could any but the most drivelling imbecility pretend to 
say that there was a toto ccdo difference between the views of these 
persons in relation to the phenomenon ? Or any difference at all, 
except that one had bestowed a name upon the occurrence, and the 
other had left it unnamed ? And is not such substantially the 
fact in relation to the matter before us ? Do not the speculations 
of Dr. Hodge plainly lead to the conclusion that, in regard to the 
vital doctrine in question, there is merely a nominal difference be- 
tween the views entertained thereon by the Calvinistic church 
and those entertained by her Socinian adversaries ? And has not 
this astounding notion already been so far accepted that any 
earnest effort to rouse attention to a sense of her impending danger 
in view of it, is treated by an extensive combination in her midst 
as an offence deserving the most virulent and vindictive proscrip- 
tion, and treated as an attempt without reason to disturb her 
peace ? and as assailing a doctrine essentially sound \ If these 
things be so, let her look to herself lest otherwise she be called 
ere long to reap and to mourn over the bitter fruits which her 
present supineness and slumbering over the matter are permitting 
to mature. 1 

Zuingle, before the time of Socinus, affirmed that original sin 
was only a calamity inflicted under Providence, and not a crime 
or fault (morbum, non peccatum cum culpa conjunctum), but the 
entire Protestant world, and he himself subsequently, disclaimed 
the notion. Somewhat over a century later Placseus fell into sub- 
stantially the same error; but his doctrine was promptly con- 
sidered and condemned by the Synod of Charenton, and the Re- 
formed churches universally consigned it to the undisputed pos- 
session of the Socinian and Eemonstrant schools, who claimed 
that there neither was nor could be in Adam's offspring any sub- 

1 See a deeply impressive illustration of this truth in pp. 3-7 of Dr. 
Baird's Rejoinder to the Princeton Review, (J. M. Wilson, Philadelphia, I860,) 
and in the True Witness, March, 10 and 31 (1860), cited on pages 34 and 35 
©f the Rejoinder. 



OTHER RESULTS. 



279 



jective guilt calling for the infliction, and that they are adjudged 
by the alone sovereign pleasure of God to the calamities which 
befall the race. The case, however, is in nowise altered, either in its 
rational or moral bearing, by naming these calamities penal ; for if 
named penal, it is, as Dr. Hodge alleges, only as the punishment 
of Adam's personal guilt, and not of our own subjective demerit ; 
and if not called penal, they still are affirmed by both parties to 
come upon us by a judicial sentence in consequence of Adam's 
personal transgression, and not in view of any participation in the 
guilt of the first sin. In either case, therefore, they are but cal- 
amities inflicted by the sovereign will of God, without reference 
to subjective demerit or ill-desert. And this view, so directly in 
antagonism to the received doctrine, we are now required, under 
pain of the severest denunciation and proscription, to accept as the 
truth of God. Are we then, and without a struggle to the very 
death, prepared to recognize such a conception with the inevitable 
logical sequences and the tremendous revolution which it must in- 
exorably inaugurate in that cherished theology which we have re- 
ceived pure from God's word, and from His witnesses who have 
preceded us. and which we are bound to transmit as pure to those 
who shall come after us? And are we to concede this while the 
whole Reformed church, from first to last, has ever contended 
faithfully against it, and maintained unflinchingly against the 
learned and mighty array of the Socinian and Arminian (or Pe- 
monsti-ant) phalanxes, as welTas against Pighius, Catharinus, and 
their followers in the Papal school, the righteous imputation of 
the first sin on account both of our own subjective guilt and the 
guilt of our representative ? The Church herself must determine, 
and let her do it without unnecessary delay. 

In order to a proper finish of this whole branch of the discus- 
sion, we shall here, before passing on, present from one of our 
most thorough and accomplished divines a brief but comprehensive 
statement of the position sustained by the Church on this whole 
subject, and as assumed and illustrated in the discussions of the 
doctrine with her antagonists. 

Let it be noted, then, that the earlier theologians generally, in 
treating the doctrine of original sin, observe a distinction (though 
they disregard all attempts at mere metaphysical precision of 
statement) between inherent and imputed sin, but affirm that 



280 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



original sin, in the broad sense of the phrase, and as including 
both, is vere peccatum, an expression which, in the connection, and 
not without reason, has occasioned Dr. Hodge no little perplexity, 
and the utterance of no small amount of what, if found in others,, 
he would call nonsensical. 1 This statement is, that original sin is,, 
1, vere peccatum ; and 2, that it passes (transit) by both imputa- 
tion and generation ; thus conjoining the two, that is, inherent 
and imputed sin, and not separating them, as Placseus on the one 
hand, and Dr. Hodge on the other, have done, by making either 
causal of the other. Some, however, prefer the general explana- 
tion, that original sin, in the sense of inherent corruption, is a 
consequence of the imputation of the first sin, which was, as they 
teach, immediately imputed to or charged upon the race for con- 
demnation, understanding and explaining the first sin, or A dam's 
sin, to be, not Adam's merely personal sin, but the sin in which 
both he and all the race mutually participated, thus affirming a 
basis of subjective desert in the race, as well as in Adam himself. 

Our readers may find in Section 13, above, the Church view 
(as presented by Alting and others), that original sin, both in- 
herent and imputed, is vere peccatum. But we now cite in illus- 
tration of the accuracy of those representations a portion of his 
summary of the principal controversies respecting original sin, in 
the statement of which the position of the Reformed Church on 
the whole subject is clearly and indubitably brought to view. 2 
They had controversies hereon with the Socinians, Papists, and 
Innovators, or Arminians. As to the Socinians : " They deny,"' 
says he, " that the whole human race sinned in the one Adam (in 
uno Adamo)," and " that original sin, or the corruption of nature,, 
is propagated by generation from Adam to all men." The Papists 
assert that " original sin is the very sin of Adam imputed to us — 
not the pravity (vitium) of nature inhering in us — which is not,, 
however, the opinion of all, but of some." And then, after 
enumerating the errors of the Papists on the subject, he refers to 
the " Innovators " as defending, among other errors, the follow- 
ing (which we here present in the original Latin, but shall trans- 
late it presently), to-wit: "I. Peccatum Adami non imputari pos- 

1 See Princeton Essays, First Series, pages 177-182. 

2 Theologia Eleuctica Nova, loco VIII., pp. 324, 325, and as a further illus- 
tration read pages 229, 230. 



HERMENEUTICS. 



281 



teris, ac si ejusdem cum ipso culpse rei essent. II. Peccatum 
originis [i. e. corruptio inhserens] non esse vere aut proprie pecca- 
tum, sed tantum primi illius peccati effectum et pcenam." 

Such, then, in brief were the errors of these great antagonists 
of the Church doctrine — Socinian, Papal, and Arminian — on the 
point in question, and all of which were, of coarse, repudiated by 
the Galvinistic church: the first denying that all the human race- 
really sinned in Adam, and that original sin, or native corruption,, 
is propagated by generation ; the second asserting that original 
sin is the personal sin of Adam imputed to his posterity, and 
which is causal of inherent depravity ; while the Innovators de- 
fend the errors: I. That the sin of Adam is not imputed to his 
posterity as if they were guilty with him of the same fault. IL. 
That original sin [inherent corruption] is not truly and 'properly 
sin, but only the effect and punishment of his sin" So that to 
maintain that our inherent corruption is the penalty of Adam's 
sin, and that his sin is not imputed to his posterity on the ground 
that they were guilty with him of the same offence, is a rejection 
of the doctrine of the Reformed Church. (See also pages 329,.. 
330.) 

Participation in the first sin, therefore, is an essential element, 
in the theology of the Protestant churches of the Reformation.. 
And just here, on this vital and turning point in the system of 
grace, and precisely where Whitby and Curcellseus and thousands 
of others have suffered disastrous shipwreck of their faith, Dr. 
Hodge comes in and unites with the Socinian and Remonstrant 
schools in denouncing and repudiating the doctrine. But his rea- 
sons, both exegetical and philosophical, for doing so Ave shall in 
our next and subsequent sections proceed to consider. 

§ 25. The Exegesis of Romans v. 12, 18, 19, by Dr. Hodge is 
Irreconcilable with the Principles of True Hkrmeneutics, 

AND WITH THE UsUS LoQUENDI OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

The verses here specified represent the whole paragraph (or 
verses 12-21), as is shown in the beginning of our Section 18, and 
also by the admission of Dr. Hodge, in which we entirely concur, 
and are here specifically named instead of the paragraph itself, 
because they here likewise (as in § 18) are the subject of formal 
critical examination. 



282 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

The principles of hermeneutics in general might be properly 
"here treated (for the topic should not be passed over without re- 
mark), but I shall advert to them very briefly, and only as intro- 
ductory to the critical examination of the exposition of Dr. Hodge. 

The interpretation of the word of God requires less of scientific 
attainment than of simple integrity and teachableness of spirit ; 
for God, while He conceals Himself from the worldly wise and 
prudent, reveals Himself to babes. There is a fallacy too gen- 
erally entertained on the subject even by the multitude of 
Christians, . which is occasioned by the fact that the Scriptures 
being originally written in Hebrew and Greek, it requires some 
little learning and somewhat of a critical apparatus to read them 
so as to thoroughly comprehend their idioms, historical and arch- 
aeological allusions, and the like. And the idea that, in order to 
understand the Bible at all, must require considerable learning and 
scientific attainment — an idea which, as Edwards in the conclu- 
sion of his great work on Original Sin observes, has too often been 
favored for sinister purposes by professed interpreters ; when the 
truth of the matter simply is, that the Scriptures, if correctly and 
intelligibly translated into the language of any nation or tribe, 
may, by those of that people who receive them in a teachable and 
devout spirit, be understood and apprehended in everything neces- 
sary to enable such persons to form just conceptions of God, of 
our lost and ruined condition by sin, and of all the provisions 
of redeeming love and mercy for our deliverance; or, in a word, 
such persons in such circumstances will, as regards a capability of 
understanding and applying everything pertaining to their salva- 
tion, stand upon the same plane as the scholar, with all his learned 
apparatus of grammars, lexicons, etc., for all these place him only 
in the attitude of understanding the language in which the Divine 
will was originally conveyed, and -which, by hypothesis, is placed 
intelligibly and faithfully translated in the hands of the unlearned 
but serious men aforesaid. A knowledge of the sacred languages 
is, of course, and oh many accounts advantageous to the Christian, 
as enabling him to expose and repel the false glosses of skeptics 
and other perversions of the word, and is of inestimable service to 
the clergyman in numberless ways, and especially for explaining 
the truth and enforcing it upon the mind and heart of his hearers. 
JBut when that truth is clearly and fully presented, they alone be- 



HERMENE UTICS . 283 

come responsible for the use they make of it. A moment's re- 
flection will evince that these things are so. For the Scriptures 
being intended by their author for all who truly desire to learn 
of Christ, and to know how they may walk in the way of life, if 
only the learned were capable of understanding them, they must 
prove inadequate to the necessities of niriety-nine hundredths of 
those for whom they were designed. And the injunctions to 
read, understand, and search the Scriptures could have to them 
no available relevancy. 

It is further apparent that, as the divine word has emanated 
from the Source of all holiness and truth, and possesses these 
characteristics in the highest perfection, so, if we would be able 
to appreciate and understand it thoroughly, it must be approached 
by us with a devout and truth-loving spirit. Skeptics, with their 
usual shallowness, have endeavored to ridicule this idea. But the 
principle itself is vindicated, not only by true philosophy, but by 
the clearest verdict of common sense. They who would ridicule 
it have yet no difficulty in perceiving and acknowledging the 
absurdity of expecting that one who has neither a taste for nor sym- 
pathy with " the concord of sweet sounds," should be an adequate 
judge of the composures of Handel, Mozart, Play den, or Men- 
delssohn ; or that he who delights not in true eloquence should have 
his soul enkindled by the heart-stirring appeals of a Demosthenes, 
or Chatham, or Webster. A man who has neither relish nor 
taste for poetry can form no real conception of the wonderful 
creations and soul-moving utterances of Homer, Shakespeare, and 
Milton. All this is readily conceded, and, in the sense above ex- 
pressed, the same is true in regard to the holy Scriptures. The 
man of true integrity, and uprightness, and sincerity, will under- 
stand, while the soul that is in love with trickery, and craftiness, 
and overreaching^ will learn but little more than that hell is the 
intended retribution for the perpetrators of such degradation and 
iniquity. 

The Bible, therefore, is a revelation to man — to all men in all 
conditions; i. e., to the learned and the unlearned, to the wise and 
.simple ; and was, of course, designed to be understood by them 
in all things essential to salvation if willing to be instructed 
therein ; otherwise it could scarcely be called a revelation of the 
way to eternal life. God appointed men to write it for men. 



284 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Ariel while, as we have said, it is addressed to all classes, it is pre- 
eminently true of those who desire to learn in order to do His will, 
that "they shall know the doctrine," and that "in His light they 
shall see light." 

Then further: the Divine word is not, as has been fanatically 
pretended, addressed to ns solely through the intellect or intel- 
lectual powers ; but through the moral nature — conscience and the 
moral feelings. Dr. Hodge, referring to that instinctive percep- 
tion which all men naturally possess of the distinction between 
benevolence and justice, justly remarks that " these intuitive mo- 
ral judgments are as clear and as trustworthy revelations of the 
nature of God as can possibly be made. They force conviction in 

spite of all speculative sophistries If moral perfection be 

not in Him what it is in us, then He is to us an unknown some- 
thing, and we use words without meaning when we speak of Him 
as holy, just, and good." 1 It is to this same moral nature that the 
Divine word is emphatically responsive, and not merely to the 
intellectual, as the Rationalist pretends ; and in regard to the true 
meaning of any portion of it bearing upon ethical obligation and 
the things of salvation, the view seriously and considerately ar- 
rived at by the humble though unlettered disciple is far to be pre- 
ferred to that of the undevout critic, though he be master of all 
human science and learning. 

Another principle which commends itself to the common judg- 
ment, and has always been recognized by the Christian Church, 
is, that the Bible is its own interpreter; that is, on everything per- 
taining to the immediate design of God in declaring His will to 
men. The Holy Spirit often therein employs terms in a sense 
peculiar to Himself, and it is in no sense safe, therefore, in every 
case, to rest an explanation of the meaning of his language upon 
merely classical usage; and it is always and decidedly wrong to 
depart from the gospel use (if I may so speak) of the terms he 
employs (as, e. g., grace, faith, repentance, salvation, and .the like) 
in order to place their explanation upon a classical basis. This is 
not the method for discovering, but for concealing what God has 
really imparted, and which alone is the true interpretation of His 
words. It may be named the analogy of the Divine word, i. e. T 



1 See his Theology, Vol. I., p. 420. 



HERMENEUTICS. 



285 



Scriplura interpres Scripturce ; while the opposite maxim, Philo- 
sophia Scripturce Sacrce interpres, is perniciously false. The for- 
mer conducts us to the word as. learners, the latter as judges, and 
is the basis of the accommodation theory respecting which Titt- 
man says: " Whether such interpretation as this is to be tolerated 
does not need to be discussed. But if the apostles were deceived, 
and have narrated many things which they believed to be true, still 
the interpreter is not permitted to doubt respecting their real 
opinion; nor, on the contrary, when the things they relate ajipear 
not to he true, is he allowed so to explain, or rather distort, their 
words as to give them a greater appearance of the truth. Such 
license no one could think of employing in regard to profane 
writers, nor do the laws of just interpretation in any regard toler- 
ate it." 1 

It is likewise a recognized canon that the literal, or what the 
old interpreters name the proper or historical sense, is never to be 
departed from without a weighty or sufficient reason. And also, 
finally (for we are unwilling to prolong these remarks), that words 
are never to be considered and treated as tropical which have lost 
their original or proper signification, and are employed no longer 
in any but a secondary sense, under which category must necessa- 
rily be ranked dp^aprta, dfxapr(oX6? : and dp.aprdvetv. 2 

We advert to these comprehensive but plain and simple princi- 
ples of Scripture interpretation that readers without classical or 
academical culture may perceive that the question as to the mean- 
ing of the passage under consideration is one upon which they, 
without incurring the charge of presumption from any really sen- 
sible mind, may make up their own mind. E"or is it any reasonable 
ground of objection to this, that learned men may and have differed 
as to its meaning; for such an objection would foreclose to them the 
duty in regard to every other passage in which any doctrine of the 
evangelical system is taught, since the same may be claimed in re- 

1 See American Biblical Eepository for 1831, p. 489. (Andover.) 

2 "Ac primo," says Ernesti, " in tropicorum numero non esse habenda 
verba, qua? propriam significationem amisserunt, aut qua3 ita dicuntur de 
Tebus iis, ad quas ab aliis traducta sunt, nt sola de iis dicantur, nec aliud pro- 
prium extet atque usurpetur supra demonstration est." See Dr. Ammou's 
■edition of Ernesti's Institutio Interpretis, Parte L, Sect. II., Cap. IV., § 7: 
and confer Partem I., Sect. L, Cap. II., §§ 1, usque ad 15. (Leipsia3, 1809.) 



286 



ORIGINAL Sm AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



lation to all such. The paragraph before us is, notwithstanding 
its wonderful rhetorical finish and its depth and precision of argu- 
ment, eminently of a practical character ; and, being legitimately 
translated, any sincere and devout believer may decide for himself 
as to its actual meaning. We shall lay before our readers the 
facts in all that pertains to the points of difference between the 
interpretation of Dr. Hodge and that which the Church has ever 
regarded as its true sense and signification, and thus they will be 
abundantly able to draw their own conclusions, and so to make up 
their own minds intelligently in regard to it. 

The Exposition of the Passage. 
How, then, does Dr. Hodge's exposition meet and fulfil the 
conditions of these and other recognized laws of interpreta- 
tion ? 

In our Section 18 (to which we again refer our readers) we had 
occasion to cite the Doctor's exposition of the verses now before 
us, and in support of which he, in his revised edition, claims that 
the whole body of commentators concur with him therein — a de- 
claration which Dr. Hodge should have been at once and formally 
required to make (at least) approximately good by a reference to 
fact, or decidedly to retract ; for he does this in the very face of 
the fact, (1), that all the approved critics and commentators, from 
Augustine to the Reformation, and of the churches of the Refor- 
mation, both Lutheran and Reformed, and of the ablest of the 
later evangelical critics, such as Philippi, Meyer, Tholuck, Lange, 
Alford, Wordsworth, etc., do not, in any sense of the term, even 
countenance that exposition ; and (2), that the exposition which 
he has given is that by which the Socinians, and Remonstrants, 
and Semi-Pelagians, have ever sought to enervate and abolish the 
Church doctrine of original sin, and for that purpose introduced and 
elaborated this very exegesis, and also applied it in order to refute 
those very commentators whom Dr. Hodge thus claims in his own 
support, while at the same time he denounces the exposition which 
recognizes our participation in the first sin (and which truly is the 
interpretation of the Church from the days of Augustine until 
now), as mystic and Pantheistic nonsense, " which does not rise to 
the dignity of a contradiction, and has no meaning at all." (Page 
236.) We have already cited this language, and may revert to it 



THE EXPOSITION". 287 

again, for it should be held definitely in view in considering the 
whole subject. 

Dr. Hodge states that the scope of the passage is to illustrate the 
doctrine of the justification of the sinner on the ground of the 
righteousness of Christ by a reference to the condemnation of 
men for the sin of Adam, and that verses 13-17 are a parenthesis 
— verses 12, 18, 19 containing the whole point of the comparison;; 
that the " wherefore " (dtd tooto) in verse 12 is illative, denoting 
a conclusion from the verses immediately preceding. 

As to this criticism in the general (in which Dr. Hodge is sup- 
ported by good authorities) it may be observed, that the illation of 
did tooto is, perhaps, more restricted to the immediate context than 
his remarks would indicate. The conception, however, that verses- 
13-17 are parenthetical (a suggestion which, unless I err, owes- 
its origin to Grotius) is a mere unsustained assumption. The in- 
ternal evidence seems clearly against it ; for a parenthesis of such 
length, and containing announcements of such weight and im- 
portance, would be indeed anomalous. The view of Meyer, there- 
fore, is greatly to be preferred, to- wit: that verse IS is a recapit- 
ulation rather than a resumption. We cite the verses in the com- 
mon version. 

Terse 12, " Wheeefoee as by one man sin entered into the 
world, and death by sin ; and so death passed upon all men,, 
for that all have sinned." 

The apodosis begins with like as (w<r-sp), as a comparative state- 
ment, and introduces the second member of the sentence, the first 
being in verse 11, " By whom we now receive the atonement or 
reconciliation. Lange (in locum) remarks that Aa/ifidvetv, which 
simply means to lay hold of, to apprehend, " does not in the New- 
Testament denote a passive reception, but an ethical, religious, and 
moral appropriation ; for example, John i. 12. And this is here 
the point of comparison between verses 11 and 12." This view 
is of long standing, and seems decidedly preferable to any other. 
And thus the sense of the passage would be, " Therefore, (we re- 
ceived and appropriated the reconciliation through Christ), like as 
we appropriated the sin and death that passed on all men, when 
by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, inasmuch 
as all sinned ;" i. e., participated with him in that sin. This was 
the exposition of Piscator (1625), who says : " Hoc versu enun- 



'288 



ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



ciat protasis similitudinis, qua Christum comparat cum Adamo 
earn que tanquam corollarium (ut videtur) deducit e sententia prox- 
ime-antecedente, ubi dixit nos per Christum accepisse reeoncilia- 
lionem, quasi dicat. Quum igitur per Christum acceperemus re- 
•conciliationem : coasequens est Christum similem esse Adamo, per 
quern Deum offendimus peccantes in illius lumbis." {In locum.) 
It is supported likewise by Cocceius, Eisner, Koppe, Wordsworth, 
Conybeare and Howson, Alford and Schaff, who says, " Tlie great 
points of comparison are, (1), Sin and death as a principle and 
power proceeding from Adam ; righteousness and life as a counter- 
vailing and conquering principle and power proceeding from 
Christ upon the whole human race; (2), Death passing upon, all 
men by participation in the sin of Adam ; life passing upon all 
men by participation in the righteousness of Christ. But the 
analogy is not absolute, for (1), the participation in Adam's sin is 
universal in fact, while the participation in the righteousness of 
Christ, though this righteousness is equally universal in power and 
intention, is limited in fact to believers^; in other words, all are 
sinners, but not all are believers ; . . . . (3), What Christ gained 
for us is far greater .... than what was lost in Adam." {In 
Lange.) 

Like as by one man. — Not "on account of one man, as Paul 
would undoubtedly have said had he held the doctrine of gratui- 
tous imputation." ( Venema.) Not "by his guilt" {Meyer), which 
would not suit the antithesis — Christ; but by one man, as the 
human principle, the historic or efficient cause (he represents the 
original pair in their unity ; for in Genesis Adam is an appellative 
rather than a proper name — see Gen. i. 27, 28), in the same man- 
ner as Christ is the historic or efficient cause of righteousness and 
life." {Lange.) The antithesis demands this. We are not, there- 
fore, to look out of Adam, as Dr. Hodge does, for ' the efficient 
cause ; that is, we are not to seek it in the pretext that the divine 
power produced guilt and corruption (penally or otherwise) in the 
posterity, any more than we should look for an efficient cause out- 
side, or aside from the second Adam, in producing the results of 
his work. Augustine says: "We say they draw sin originally 
from (not but ex) Adam ; that is, that they are implicated in 
the guilt; and on this account are held exposed to punishment." 1 
1 Ketract. lib., I., cap. 15, cited in Vossii Hist. Pelagian, page 135. 



THE EXPOSITION. 



289 



He said likewise that habere peccatu/n et reurn peccati are identical 
in import. 

Sin entered into the world, — a wonderfully pregnant expres- 
sion ! Dr. Hodge explains it to mean, " that on his (Adam's) ac- 
count, they (all men) were regarded and treated as sinners " (the 
very thing, as above shown, that Paul does not say,) and in sup- 
port of which he adds : " It will hardly be denied that this expres- 
sion must be understood in the same way with the obviously 
parallel phrase, £ by one man's disobedience many were made sin- 
ners,' in verse 19, and the corresponding one in other portions of 
the passage." That is, in other words, ij dfiapria is here guilt — a 
forensically imputed guilt of & peccat um alienum (and not guilt in 
the sense of subjective demerit or ill-desert), which through the di- 
vine efficiency in the exaction of punitive justice became the source 
of moral corruption in the race — an assumption so utterly at war 
with the obvious meaning of the word in the text and context, to 
say nothing of its universal use, that it seems impossible to im- 
agine how it could ever have been entertained at all. If we re- 
gard dfiaprta in its primary sense (as employed in the New Testa- 
ment), it seems to denote, ?iot sin considered as an. action, but as 
the quality of an action, or sin generically. In this generic sense 
it is used here and in the context (vs. 13), "Sin was in the world," 
"Sin is not imputed where there is no law;" but in verse 12 it has 
the article, because reference is made, not to representations of the 
idea, but to its entire contents. Thus, r t dfiaprta entered into the 
world, and by rf^ dfiaprta death." And in verse 20, u ij dfiapria. 
hath abounded," and verse 21, dfxapria hath reigned unto 
death." "Very significant also is the language of chapter vii. 13, 
dlld i) dfiaprta ha <pav7j dfiaprca, but sin that it might appear sin ; ha 
yivTjrat xaff o-zpouXr^ a/j.aprcoXd$ ij dfiaprca; that sin might become ex- 
ceedingly a sinner, or exceeding sinful. According to which, sin 
is not merely the quality of an action, but a principle manifesting 
itself in the activity of the subject. 1 Nor is it in any of the 
(nearly 1T0) instances of its employment in the New Testament 
used in any such sense as Dr. Hodge has here assumed. 

Grotius, in order to give plausibility to the Socinian and Ar- 
minian construction of the term, alleges that it denotes punish- 

1 See this well and ably illustrated by Cremer {infra vocem), in his Biblico- 
Theological Lexicon, aforesaid. 
19 



I 



290 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

ment by a common Hebrew metonymy, to which Witsius ef- 
fectually responds, that " Grotius really prevaricates when he thus 
comments on the passage. He says the metonymy is frequent; 
but he neither does nor can prove it by a single example, which is 
certainly bold and rash." .... " It cannot be explained consistently 
with divine justice how, without a crime, death shoidd have passed 
upon Adam's posterity. Prosper reasoned solidly and elegantly 
against Collator, " Unless, perhaps, it can be said that the punish- 
ment, and not the guilt, passed on the posterity of Adam ; but to 
say this is in eve? 7 y respect false. For it is too impious to judge 
so of the justice of God ; as if He would, contrary to His own law, 
condemn the innocent with the guilty. The guilt, therefore, is 
evident where the punishment is so, and a partaking in punish- 
ment shows a partaking in guilt; that human misery is not the 
appointment of the Creator, but the retribution of the judge so 
that Dr. Hodge's exposition of the term, being at direct variance 
with the word of God, must be set aside as wholly inadmissible. 

The expression -q dfiapzia el$ rdv x6(t/j.ov eiffr/XOr), sin entered into the 
ivorld, seems to indicate that it was already a principle elsewhere 
existing — a living, acting principle, which began not its existence 
in the Kosmos, but entered therein — an idea not unfamiliar to the 
Jewish mind anterior to Paul. (Wisdom ii. 23, 24, and xiv. 12-14.) 
And He who brought it, with its invariable accompaniment, death, 
and so was the cause of its entrance, is on that account denounced 
by our Saviour as a murderer. And here let the reader put to 
himself the question: How might this idea comport with a re- 
ference of its moral turpitude in us to the divine efficiency through 
a penal exaction for a peccatum alienumf Man is, of course, in- 
cluded with the subjects upon which this entrance of sin and death 
is made, and included, indeed, as the central object; but 
here is not limited to man. It is rather the order of things of 
which humanity is the centre, and this is the leading idea of the 
Bible on the subject. A brief reference, however, to the mean- 
ing of the term as it was understood in the apostle's day, may be 
here in place. 

Aristotle had defined Kosmos as a system (ow-n^aa) comprising 
heaven and earth and all things contained therein ; but otherwise 
the order and beautiful arrangement of the universe is named 

1 See his work on the Covenants, Book I., ch. VIII., §§ 33, 34. 



THE EXPOSITION. 



291 



xocr/^." 1 Plutarch, though not perhaps with historical accuracy, 
says: "Pythagoras was the first who named the system of the 
universe Kosmos (rrjv -Coy 6Xwv nepioyrjv z6(7/j.ov), from the order ob- 
servable in it." 2 The same was affirmed by the Latins. Cicero 
says : " Hunc hac varietate distinctum bene Graaci -/.6<t/jj)v, nec lucu- 
lentum mundum nominaverimus ;" 3 and as his ovm definition, says, 
that "communis quasi Deorum atque hominum domus aut urbs 
utrorumque," etc. (De datura Deor., lib. II., cap. 62.) And 
Pliny observes, that " quern xofffiov Grseci nomine ornamenti ap- 
pellaverunt, eum et nos a perfecta absolutaque elegantia, mundum." 4 
Compare 1 Pet. iii. 3, and in the LXX., Exod. xxxiii. 5 ; Isa. xlix. 
18, and Jer. iv. 30. 

Such was the z^o? — all order, harmony, and perfection, with 
humanity as its centre — when sin, with all its defilement, distor- 
tion, and baleful antagonisms, entered, producing disorder, rebel- 
lion, and death. Did, then, the sin of Adam, a peccatum alienum 
or foreign sin to all but himself, injure only himself directly, 
and the race and the rest of the universe only incidentally — that 
is, by a judicial act of the Creator, charging it upon a guiltless 
offspring, and then cursing them, and destroying His own beauti- 
ful world because of a sin with which they had had nothing to do ? 

But the dfj-aprta— this principle of ruin, disorder, and spiritual 
death — must be, in its relation to the race, something more than a 
mere negation, as Dr. Hodge's theory represents it to have been. 
It was not a mere putative guilt which came upon the race through 
x\dam, but sin, an active and deathful principle, which the apostle 
elsewhere portrays as riding, reigning, working, defiling, and de- 
stroying. Such is the baleful and terrible power he attributes to 
it, and of course to assume that it is a merely putative guilt would 
be to trace directly to God Himself, as their immediate and efficient 
cause, all these positive and destructive results of its entrance ; for, 
if they accrue in consequence of a purely forensic accusation of 
putative guilt against the guiltless, and yet, as in the case of in- 
fants, sin acquires its defiling, domineering, and destroying power 
before voluntary agency can possibly commence (which Dr. Hodge 
affirms most emphatically to be the fact 5 ), then these results are 

1 De -Mundo, lib. II. 2 De Placit. Philos., lib. II., cap. 1. 
* De Univers, cap. 10. 4 Nat. Hist., lib. II., cap. 4. 
5 Theology, Vol. II., pages 189-192, 195, 196. 



292 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



by inevitable sequence traceable to God as their procuring or 
efficient cause. But nothing like this can be found in the passage. 
Adam, by 7tapd6aai<s and T,apd--<D;j.a — offence and transgression — (for 
the apostle applies both terms to his sin), opened the door, so to 
speak, through which the fyiapria entering brought death, and 
which, through imputation and natural generation, became uni- 
versal, and the procuring cause of all the -apo-zoj ; w-a of his pos- 
terity ; for as Schaff, with his singularly acute power of delinea- 
tion, remarks, " Paul here carefully distinguishes between dfiaprCa 
as the generic and napd6a<fiq and napa-vrmim as the concrete act of 
transgression." 1 And then, as above stated, it already existed in 
another sphere aside from the Kosmos ; but now it entered (eiarjXde) 
therein with all its baleful train, or, as Luther expresses it, " 1st 
durchgedrungen " has ]jenetrated or pierced through, a most apt 
expression, which Piscator thus illustrates : "Pervasit, quemadmo- 
dum lues gregem aliquem pervadit, et singulas oves contagio in- 
fix-it," (in locum) ; dtrjXOev, l<p a>, both referring to the individual 
and ethical appropriation of it by the race when all sinned in and 
with Adam. The expression, therefore, denotes, not a mere ten- 
dency to sin and death, which a putation of guilt might be possibly 
supposed to occasion in the subjectively innocent, but as Augustine 
expresses it, the actual propagation of sin. (See Lange, page 17 6.) 
The phrase st? tl&vto.<s foffpeunou? — to all men — is, therefore, not 
strictly equivalent to el$ for the latter includes the for- 

mer ; as De Wette, after Piscator, has expressed it, the former dif- 
fers from the latter " as the concrete parts from the abstract whole ; 
« ddpy-oOo.'. differs from elffipzeaffai, as the going from house to house 
differs from entering a town." 

For that, or inasmuch as, all sinned. — The rendering k<p <Z 
by inasmuch as, or forasmuch as, has the sanction of the highest 
critical authority, ancient and modern; for it is not so much a 
causal as a conditioning particle, " and implies that a moral par- 
ticipation of all men in the sin of Adam is the medium or cause 
of their death, just as faith on our part is the moral condition of 
our participation in Christ's life. It is unfavorable to the doctrine 
of a gratuitous imputation. The legal act of imputation is not ar- 
bitrary and unconditioned, but rests on a moral ground of an ob- 
jective reality." (Schaff in Lange.) 

1 In Lange, ad locum, page 176. 



THE EXPOSITION. 



293 



"All sinned," not all have sinned. Winer denies that the 
aorist is ever confounded with the perfect. The second aorist 
here presents the sinning of all as a historical fact, or a momentary 
action of the past ; whereas the theory of Dr. Hodge inevitably 
represents the sinning of Adam's posterity as taking place after 
he had perpetrated the peccatum alienum, or foreign sin ; for it 
represents them as being constituted guilty only by the forensic 
imputation to them of the guilt which he had contracted by the 
perpetration of that foreign sin. Of course, then, the imputation 
could not take place until after the sin imputed had been commit- 
ted. And thus the theory arrays itself directly against the text. 
And then, still further, it could not in strictness of speech, ac- 
cording to Dr. Hodge's leiterated asseveration, be imputed to 
them at all, so as to constitute them sinners, or guilty, until they 
personally existed, and consequently none sinned in the first trans- 
gression except Adam and Eve. And then, as non-existences can- 
not have sin judicially charged upon them, it follows, on Dr. 
Hodge's theory, that a large proportion of the race have not even 
yet sinned in any possible or conceivable sense. Thus irrecon- 
cilable is his theory with the apostolic averment, and with the 
standards of the Church, that in the first sin all sinned. Luther 
renders the phrase, Sie sincl allzumal sihnde. Meyer (in locum) 
says, " The sinning of each man is presented as a historical fact, 
whereby the sinful state is brought about." Schaff observes that 
" the aorist was chosen with reference to the past event of Adam's 
fall, which was at the same time the fall of the human race repre- 
sented by him and germinally contained in him." (Compare Ro- 
mans iii. 23, in which the same phrase occurs.) 

Dr. Hodge alleges that " the word translated have sinned, may, 
in strict accordance with usage, be rendered 'have become guilty,' 
or, regarded and treated as sinners." But how have they been so 
regarded and treated who not as yet have (according to his con- 
stant allegation) in any sense existed ? Whitby, however, who 
construes the term as he does, frankly owns that "we meet not 
with the word ^aaprov in this sense elsewhere in the New Testa- 
ment. While Turrettin (who, moreover, without reason, has been 
claimed by Dr. Hodge as supporting his theory) says : "At verbum 
ijfiapzov proprie non potest trahi ad habitum peccati, vel corruptionem 
habituatem et inhcerentem, sed proprie peccatum aliguod actuate • 



294 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



notat, idque prceteritum, quod non potest aliud esse, quam ipsum 
Adami peecatum ; aliud quippe est peccatorem esse vel nasi, aliud 
vero reipsa peccare : qui ergo, cunt, nondum essent %7i rerum natural 
dicuntur in alio peccasse, censentur procul dubio eo committente 
peecatum, et ipsi etiam commisse," etc. 1 That is, in brief, the 
word refers to actual sin which was committed in Adam, and of 
which his posterity all were guilty of committing ; and hence when 
they are born it is charged upon them. 

In order to sustain the allegation that his construction of the 
term is " in strict accordance with usage," Dr. Hodge adduces two 
passages from the Septuagint (which are likewise insisted on for 
the like purpose by the Socinians and Remonstrants ; they are Gen. 
xliii. 9 (compare xliv. 32) and 1 Kings i. 21.) In the first, the 
phrase is r}[j.aprr)X(b$ Z(7o<j.a>, by which Judah, in reference to the re- 
turn of Benjamin, binds himself to his father under the penalty of 
perpetual guilt — the guilt of having violated a direct and solemn 
promise — and says : "If I fail to bring him back to thee, then I 
shall have transgressed — I shall have broken my covenant with 
thee. How, then, does this usage of the term establish the idea 
of a merely putative guilt? Dr. Hodge will not venture to say 
that there would not have been an incurrence of actual guilt in 
case of Judah's failure to fulfil this promise. How, then, can this 
instance be pleaded by him as in point ? Of course, neither Judah 
nor his father would construe the pledge as irrespective of divine 
providences over which man could have no control ; and this being- 
taken into the account, none can without presumption allege that 
Judah would not have been in every sense of the word a sinner^ 
a transgressor, guilty of the breach of a solemn covenant transac- 
tion, had he failed to do that which he here pledges himself to his 
father to perform. Here, then, we have a voluntary assumption 
of legal responsibility, and real guilt and sin in case of failure, — 
an instance which Dr. Hodge alleges as illustrative and confirma- 
tory of his assertion that a liability to the exactions of penal justice 
may be involuntarily incurred! No one denies that legal respon- 
sibility may be voluntarily assumed; but would any number of 
instances of such incurrence prove that it may likewise be incurred 
involuntarily on our part ? 

In his other instance (1 Kings i. 21), Bathsheba, referring to 

1 Instit. Theologian, loco IX., Quanst. IX., § 16. 



THE EXPOSITION. 



295 



herself and Solomon, says to David, that if Adonijah succeed in 
his attempted usurpation of the throne, I and my son shall be 
tipaprcuXoi, — that is, we shall be held and treated as guilty of that 
of which we shall really be guilty, to-wit, disaffection to his usurped 
reign. Had he succeeded, therefore, and had he thus treated them, 
would the treatment have been for a merely putative offence, or 
contrary to their actual character % Could they have been other- 
wise than disaffected ; and would their punishment have been for 
a merely putative guilt? In no sense whatever. In what way, 
then, could a thousand such cases prove or illustrate the truth of the 
allegation that those who are not disaffected with the government 
of God may be justly treated by Him as if they were % Surely 
such instances, instead of confirming Dr. Hodge's theory, only add 
their testimony to prove it to be, what it really is, utterly untenable. 

The word dp.aprdveiv is, as we have stated, employed in the New 
Testament more than forty times, and in twenty of these by the 
apostle. The word, as Schaft justly remarks, " cannot mean to be, 
•or to become sinf ul (=dp.aprwXov ehat, or yiyveadai), although this is 
the necessary result of the first sinful act, still less to suffer the 
punishment of sin ; but it means real, actual sinning" (In Lange.) 
Witsius likewise declares that "it is very clear to any not under 
the power of prejudice that, when the apostle affirms that all 
sinned, he spake of an act of sinning, or of an actual sin — the 
Tery term to sin denoting an action. It is one thing to sin, another 
to be sinful, if I may so speak." 1 Meyer, who is justly ranked with 
the ablest of modern expositors, denounces the exegesis which Dr. 
Hodge and the Socinians adopt as " sheer grammatical arbitrari- 
ness, for lyiaprov means they sinned, and nothing else." And he 
explains the clause to mean, "because all sinned in and with Adam 
when he sinned" 

When Paul wrote this epistle neither Jew nor Greek attached 
to the terms in question any such meaning as Dr. Hodge and the 
Socinians and Arminians insist upon ; and such being the fact, is 
it to be supposed that the apostle, in announcing a doctrine of such 
stupendous bearings as that of the gratuitous imputation of sin 
(which Dr. Hodge claims to be here announced), would do it by 
employing terms in a sense wholly unknown to those to whom he 
wrote, and at the same time expecting to be understood by them ? 
1 (Economy of the Covenants, Book I., Chap. VIII., § 81. 



296 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



He is not writing prophecy, but plain dogmatic, and of course de- 
signed his words to be understood, and their meaning appreciated 
and applied for edification. And then, moreover, although 
d/xaprdveiv is never employed in a passive sense, and never in a 
single instance has the sense of putative sinning, Dr. Hodge claims 
that in the passage before us it is employed in both these senses,, 
and, as appears from his Revised Commentary, becomes the more 
imperious and proscriptive in proportion as his lack of all rational 
support is made to appear. In the context (verse 14) the word is 
used where such a sense is confessedly impossible ; and in chapter 
iii. 23, as above remarked, the same clause is used, where he is 
obliged to explain it of actual sinning. But the allegation, seri- 
ously made by him, that theologians of every grade and class of 
doctrine, — Calvinists, Arminians, Lutherans, and Rationalists, — 
favor his interpretation, should not have been made; for the im- 
pression it conveys is extremely erroneous, and it is calculated only 
to mislead. For though it is true that Socinians, Arminians, and 
semi-Pelagians, with some modern Rationalists, have adopted it y 
the ground of this, as they are obliged to confess, was not gram- 
matical or philological, but the unworthy and fallacious ground of 
doctrinal predilection or sympathy,— they having assumed that the 
doctrine of original sin, as entertained by the Church, was absurd 
and nonsensical, adopted this exegesis to justify them in its rejec- 
tion, while the Church divines, both Calvinist and Lutheran, as we 
have shown, discarded and refuted it from the first. It had been 
in part suggested by several of the Greek fathers (of no weight,, 
however, in the scale of thorough criticism, and who did not receive 
the doctrine of original sin) ; but it attained its full development 
or elaboration through the Socinian or Remonstrant schools, who, 
being aware that it could not be sustained on the principles of true- 
hermeneutics, endeavored to carry their point by sarcasm and 
ferocious denunciation. As regards the Calvinistic and Lutheran 
churches, Dr. Hodge has not been able to adduce any divine of 
eminence who has accepted his theory with its exegesis, though 
occasionally, perhaps, a supralapsarian might be found whose doc- 
trinal principles would not forbid it, though averse to risk the 
credit of his critical reputation on its adoption. Macknight has 
been claimed in its support ; but his latitudinarian or Rationalistic- 
proclivities threw him entirely out of sympathy with the received 



THE EXPOSITION. 



297 



doctrine of original sin. Storr and Elatt have been likewise 
claimed; bat their confessedly arbitrary principles of hermeneutics 
would render their authority of but little weight, if this were even 
the fact. But it is not the fact, as then* exposition of the passage 
evinces. They say: "For this transgression [of Adam and Eve] 
produced a disorder (d-aCta), and this gave rise to a sinful disposi- 
tion of their whole nature, which became itself a foundation of 
other transgressions. Moreover, this sinful disposition (fj dfiaprta, 
Rom. v. 12) was propagated by this one individual Adam (to 
whom also it is peculiarly attributed) over the whole human family y 
and through the instrumentality of this sinful disposition (did rrjs 
aptapTias) death has been entailed on the whole race of man. It 
was in this way (ouzw?, or d:a z9js &>iapria$) that death, which would 
not have befallen man in a state of innocence, was extended to the 
whole human family, because, on account of (£<p S) the sinf ul pro- 
pensity which is common to all, all are treated: as sinful creatures, 
and subjected to the penalty of the violated law." 1 

Edwards, in refuting the exegesis which Dr. Taylor had adopted 
from the Socinians and Remonstrants (see our Sections 19 and 21 y 
above) says : " The doctrine of original sin is not only here taught, 
but most plainly, explicitly, and abundantly taught. This doctrine 
is asserted, expressly or impliedly, in almost every verse, and in 
some of the verses several times. It is fully implied in that first 
expression in the 12th verse — by one man sin entered into the 
world. The passage implies that sin became universal in the 
world, as the apostle had largely shown it was, not merely (which, 
would be a trifling observation) that the one man, who was made 
first, sinned first, before other men sinned ; or, that it did not so- 
happen that many began to sin just together at the same momenta 
The latter part of the verse, and death by sin, and so death passed 
upon all men, for that (or, if you will, unto ichich) all have sin- 
ned, shows that, in the eye of the Judge of the world, in Adanrs- 
first sin all sinned, not only in some sort, but all sinned so as to be 
exposed to thai death and final destruction ichich is the propjer 
wages of sin." 

Then, on the following page, after citing verse 20, he says i 
" These words plainly show that the offexce spoken of so often, 

1 Biblical Theology, B. III., § 55. Translated by Dr. S. S. Schumaker. 
(1836.) 



298 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

the offence of one man, became the sin of all. For when he says, 
the law entered that the offence might abound, his meaning cannot 
h>e that the offence of Adam, merely as his personally, should 
abound, but as it exists in its derived guilt, corrupt influence, and 
evil fruits, in the sin of mankind in general, even as a tree in its 
roots and branches." And then, adverting to Dr. Taylor's effort 
to divert the passage from its plain meaning, that "we all sinned 
so as to be exposed to death and final destruction" he thus con- 
tinues : " What further confirms the certainty of the proof of orig- 
inal sin, which this place affords, is this, that the utmost art cannot 
pervert it to another sense. What a variety of the most artful 
methods have been used by the enemies of this doctrine, to wrest 
and darken this paragraph of holy writ, which stands so much in 
their way, as it were to force the Bible to speak a language agree- 
able to their mind ! How have expressions been strained, words 
and phrases racked ! What strange figures of speech have been 
invented, and with violent hands thrust into the apostle's mouth, 
and then with a bold countenance and magisterial airs are obtruded 
upon the world as from him! But blessed be God, we have his 
words as he delivered them, and the rest of the same epistle, and 
his other writings to compare with them, by which his meaning 
stands in too strong and glaring a light to be hid by any of the 
artificial mists which they labor to throw upon it." 1 The whole 
•of this last paragraph is very much after the style and manner in 
which, from the very beginning, the divines of the Reformation 
refer to this Socinian exegesis. 

Neither the earlier nor the later divines of the Calvinistic and 
Lutheran churches, therefore, evince the slightest sympathy with 
this effort (though Dr. Hodge would revive it !) by a lame and im- 
potent exegesis to divest the passage of its literal and historic sig- 
nificance. And if we enquire into the position occupied by the 
recent critics and commentators, both German and English, on the 
subject, we find no one of note who does not repudiate the expo- 
sition as undeserving even of serious criticism. Tittman, De 
Wette, Tholuck, Stuart, Haldane, Philippi, Meyer, Lange, Schaff, 
Alford, Wordsworth, and others, all reject it as unauthorized and 
arbitrary ; and yet, with the usus loquendi of the divine word, as 
well as all human authorities, earlier and later (who are of any 
1 See Edward's Works, Vol. II. , pp. 509-571. 



THE EXPOSITION. 



299 



weight as exegetes), against him. and though on his own part un- 
able in any conceivable way to justify his attempted criticism, Dr. 
Hodge becomes only the more positive, and more and more de- 
nunciatory of those who discard his utterly unfounded assumptions. 

If the issue were a trivial one, not seriously affecting the inter- 
ests of either our doctrinal or ethical principles, all this might be 
borne with a good-natured smile. But it is an essentially different 
affair when Dr. Hodge scruples not to claim in the most direct 
and pointed manner, and to reiterate that the issue which he raises 
is fundamental to Protestant theology, and at the same time assails 
and denounces as guilty of fundamental heresy those who refuse 
to acquiesce in these his departures from the recognized faith of 
the Church ; and when, moreover, the moral perfections of God 
and His dealings with His accountable creatures are all, as we shall 
fully show in the sequel, vitally implicated therein, and of course 
the truth pertaining to salvation. In such circumstances it is im- 
possible to contemplate the matter without emotions to which it 
would be painful to give expression. But we repeat most em- 
phatically, that the whole claim of Dr. Hodge that this his exegesis 
is sustained by the usage of the word of God, and that it is favored 
by the recognized commentators of the Lutheran and Calvinistic 
churches, is to be set aside as utterly unfounded and fallacious. 

Tittman, in his tractate, already referred to, says : " Paul then, 
in Pom. v. 12, seq., compares the misery which was consequent 
upon sin with the blessings of salvation which by divine arrange- 
ment Christ bestows upon man. From the first man, the author 
of the first sin, misery and death came upon all, so that from one 
sin sin and death began their reign, inasmuch as all, each in his 
own way, sinned." Afford says : " Observe how entirely this as- 
sertion of the apostle (all sinned) contradicts the Pelagian or in- 
dividualistic view of men, that each is a separate creation from 
God, existing solely on his own exclusive responsibility, and affirms 
the Augustinian or Pealistic view, that all are evolved by God's 
appointment from an original stock, and, though individually re- 
sponsible, are generally involved in the corruption and condemna- 
tion of their original." So too speaks Wordsworth : " Observe the 
aorist tense fjnapro* — they all sinned — that is, at a particular time. 
And when was that ? Doubtless at the fall. All men sinned in 
Adam's sin. All fell in his fall." So also Webster and Wilkin- 



300 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION, 



son: "All sinned virtually when Adam sinned, because in him. 
their nature became sinful." And Schaff : " We hold that all men 
sinned in Adam, not indeed personally by conscious actual trans- 
gression (which Augustine never said or meant), but virtually or 
potentially ; in other words, that Adam fell, not as an individual 
simply, but as the real representative head of the human race, and 
that his fall vitiated human nature itself, and prospectively his 

whole posterity The human race is not a sandheap, but 

an organic unity ; and only on the ground of such a vital unity, as 
distinct from a mechanical or merely federal unity, can we under- 
stand and defend the doctrine of original sin, the imputation of 
Adam's sin and of Christ's righteousness. Without an actual com- 
munion of life imputation is an arbitrary legal arrangement." [In 
Lange, page 179.) 

Verse 18. Therefore as by the offence of one judgment 
came upon all men to condemnation \ even so by the righteous- 
ness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification 

OF LIFE. 

The main point to be considered in this verse, as relates to the 
inquiry before us, is the gender of fx)?, which qualifies both napa-- 
rwfiaro? and duatcb/jLaros; that is, whether it should be read the of- 
fence of one, or the one offence. Dr. Hodge, as though there 
could be no doubt on the subject, assumes that £vo? is masculine in 
both cases. And (though obliged to take it as neuter in verse 16) 
proceeds to apply it in support of his theory, to the effect that it 
was for the one offence of the one man that judgment came upon all 
men, and not for the one offence wherein all participated or sin- 
ned. This method of assuming and then applying a questionable- 
point when the preponderation of evidence obviously, and as ad- 
mitted by the best expositors, militates against the ten ability of 
the assumption, can scarcely be regarded as the proper method of 
interpreting the word of God. The Augustinian divines, both the 
earlier and the later, have never been thus positive. Turrettin, 
for example, referring to the passage, gives as the sense of it; 
"As by one sin guilt comes upon all for condemnation, so by one 
righteousness grace comes upon all for justification of life." 1 And 
Tittman says: "No one, I apprehend, can be so wanting in pro- 

1 Instit. Theol. Loc, IX., Quajst. IX., § 16. 



THE EXPOSITION. 



301 



per regard to divine justice and holiness as to suppose that all 
men are made sinners merely by the offence of Adam, and without 
any blame of their own; i. e., no one can reasonably look upon all 
men as sinners in the judgment of God, merely because of Adam's 
offence, or as rendered miserable, not on account of their own sin, 
but because Adam once sinned." 1 While the most eminent critics 
of our own day, as Meyer, Schaff, Rothe, Ewald, Afford, and 
Wordsworth, regard lvu$ as neuter = one fall, one offence, one 
righteousness. 2 And Stuart affirms that the article before 
w^ould be indispensable if it meant the one man." 3 

Lange, indeed, translates it : " Therefore, as through the fall of 
one," etc., making it masculine; but on which, with convincing 
force Schaff remarks, that " the antithesis el? ndvTas, and the anal- 
ogy of verses 12, 15, IT, 19, where too iyds is masculine, are in 
favor of Lange's view, which is also that of the translators of the 
English version ; but the absence of the article before §vd$ is almost 
conclusive against it; for in all the eight cases of this section 
where it is indisputably masculine it has uniformly the article 
. . . . except in verse 12, where it is connected with a noun 
(81 fv'o? &v0pd>itou), and therefore unnecessary, while in verse 16, 
where £z £vds must be neuter, in opposition to rcoXX&v TzapaTtrwfidrwv, 
it is, as here, without the article. The apostle, therefore, is quite 
-careful and consistent. The objection that the comparison is be- 
tween Adam and Christ, rather than between the fall of one and 
the righteousness of another, does not hold, for it is clearly a com- 
parison of both persons and effects." It may be remarked, how- 
ever, that in its theological or doctrinal aspect merely,- the ques- 
tion is one of little importance comparatively ; since all must ad- 
mit that if fv6'9 be interpreted as masculine, the expression " by the 
offence of one" can refer only to the £<p d> -dure? jjfiaprov of verse 12; 
i. e., the offence of the one in whom all sinned, or in whose offence we 
all participated. 

Verse 19. For as by one man's disobedience many were 
made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made 
mghteous. 

In remarking on this verse, Dr. Hodge observes that Paul be- 

1 American Biblical Repository, Vol. VIII., ubi supra. 

2 American edition of Lange on Romans, in locum. 

3 American Biblical Repository. Vol. VIII., pp. 73-75. 



302 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



gins it with for : "We are treated as sinners for the offence of 
Adam, for we are regarded as sinners on his account," and in his 
usual peremptory style insists that such is the meaning of the 
phrase, aiiaprwXoi xaTtar&dr^av, were constituted sinners, and es- 
pecially on the ground that the antithetic clause means to be re- 
garded and treated as righteous. As the points of the antithesis, 
however, are, on the one hand, the exhibition of God's penal justice, 
and on the other the exhibition of his gratuitous mercy, there 
can be no more ground for the inference of Dr. Hodge — that as 
mercy is extended gratuitously, therefore condemnation is like- 
wise gratuitous — than there is for the inference that, because the 
exercise of penal justice is on account of subjective ill-desert, 
therefore the exercise of mercy (or the bestowment of justification) 
has respect also to subjective desert; the one inference being quite 
as valid as the other, and both alike false and without the slightest 
foundation. Schaff, therefore, truly says : " The analogy of for- 
ensic justification is not to the point, for the righteousness of 
Christ is not imputed to the impenitent sinner, but only on the 
subjective condition of faith, by which Christ is apprehended and 
made our own. Justification presupposes regeneration, or an 
action of the Holy Spirit, by which He creates repentance of our 
sins and trust in Jesus Christ, and makes us one with Him. By 
"being in Christ" is meant not merely a nominal, putative, or 
constructive relation, but a real, substantial union; so also our 
"being in Adam," by which the other relation is illustrated, is 
real and vital. This analogy, therefore, leads to the opposite con- 
clusion, that moral participation, either potential or personal, or 
both, must he the ground of the imputation of Adam's sin." {In 
Lange, page 194.) 

The apostle, in unfolding his analogy, had no occasion (as we 
have shown) to make any direct reference to the mode in which 
sin and righteousness are or may be communicated. Turrettin, in 
allusion to the passage, and to this very point, places the meaning 
of the apostle in its true light. He says : " Because the scope of the 
apostle, which is to be carefully kept in view (unice respiciendus), 
does not extend to it (the mode), but aims only to lay open the 
foundation of the mutual participation (communionis) of the guilt 
to death, and of the right to life, from our union with the first 
and second Adam as to the thing, albeit the mode is diverse on ac- 



THE EXPOSITION". 



303 



count of the diversity of the subject;" 1 which exposition, as we 
have shown, is sustained by the whole Reformed church, and 
which, being admitted, demolishes at a stroke Dr. Hodge's criticism 
on verses 12, 18, 19, and along therewith every shred and vestige 
of his theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin; for this alleged 
support being gone, it has not in the whole Bible even a shadow 
to stand upon. But instead of expatiating here, I shall proceed 
to place before the reader the results (as they bear upon this point) 
which have been carefully arrived at by the . ablest critics of the 
age ; and by turning to Section 17, above, he will see how the 
question has been from the first viewed by the Augustinian 
Church. 

Lange says, in relation to the passage, that " it is only through 
the gospel that this ideal judgment is brought to pass, by which 
all men are presented and exposed as condemned sinners in conse- 
quence of their connection with the sin of Adam. (See John xvi. 
S, 9 ; compare Ps. li. 5, 6.) We are authorized by the language 
in maintaining that xadiaxavm possesses here the full idea of setting 
down, exhibiting, making to appear as what one is" and he ac- 
cordingly translates the clause, " set forth , made to appear (in their 
real character), as sinners" 2 Meyer says: "According to verse 
12 they were, through Adam's disobedience, actually placed in the 
category of sinners, because they sinned in and with Adam in his 
fall" Even Philippi, a rigid Lutheran, somewhat of the Quenstedt 
type, sustains the same view, and so of a multitude of other emi- 
nent critics not necessary to mention, who, though they differ on 
other points in the exposition, concur in wholly rejecting the So- 
cinian exegesis as unauthorized, De Wette himself denouncing it 
as "false." 

The word zad(<m}fit is, as Schaff observes, "employed twenty- 
two times in the ^ew Testament ; three times only in Paul (twice 

1 Loco. XYI., Quaest. II., § 19. See also our § 17, above. 

2 Cremer, in his recent valuable Lexicon of New Testament Greek, calls 
in question rather harshly this exposition of xaOtcrrdvac, on the ground that 
the word strictly taken denotes an actual appointment or setting down in a 
definite place. But in what respect does being set down in a defined or ap- 
propriate place as sinners really or practically differ from being made to ap- 
peal' as sinners t If assigned to their place as such, there certainly can be no 
question that they are made to appear as such. 



304: ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

here and once in Titus i. 5). In sixteen of these cases (including 
Titus i. 5) it clearly refers to official appointment; in one it means 
to accompany (Acts xvii. 15); in the remaining five, viz., Eom. v. 
19 (twice), Jas. iii. 6 and iv. 4, and 2 Pet. i. 8, it is to constitute, 
to render. So it is taken in this verse by nearly all the recent 
commentators." And then (in a note) "Philippi doubts the mean- 
ing reddere, facere, in the New Testament, and insists upon the 
fundamental (l),to set down, sister e, constituere, hi?istellen 3 einsetzen, 
.and translates, In die Kategorie von Sandern gesetzt worden. But 
also in this case the setting down or the imputation must be based 
on the fact that they really are sinners, and so it is taken by Phi- 
lippi." Then, after referring to the Greek metonymic interpreta- 
tion as claimed and developed by the Socinians and Arminians, 
and adopted by Dr. Hodge, he adds : " The phrase, then, can be 
taken only in the real sense, like rj/j.aprov in verse 12. It means, 
they were made sinners, either by a virtual participation in the fall 
of Adam, or by actual practice, by repeating, as it were, the fall 
of Adam in their sinful conduct. Both interpretations are per- 
fectly grammatical, and do not exclude each other. Even if the 
verb under consideration in the passive could be made out to mean 
to he exhibited, to appear, .... it always presupposes actual being ; 
they were made to appear in their true character as sinners, or what 
they really were. (Compare Lange above.) This is very different 
from, they were regarded and treated as sinners without being 
such. The metonymic interpretation confounds the effect with the 
cause, or reverses the proper order that death follows sin. .We are 
regarded and treated as sinners because we are sinners in fact and 
by practice. So, on the other hand, dixatoi zo-acradyvovzai is more 
than the declaratory dsxacwdTjaovra', and means that by Christ's 
merits we shall be actually made righteous, and appear as such 
before His judgment-seat." Pareus presents the same thought: 
"Shall be constituted righteous signifies much more than they shall 
be justified; for to be justified is to be absolved from condemnation 
by imputed righteousness, but to be constituted just is to be sanc- 
tified by habitual righteousness; that is, it includes at the same 
time the benefit of justification and sanctification." Alford says: 
"Be made righteous, not by imputation merely, any more than in 
the other case ; but 6 shall be made really and actually righteous as 
completely as the others were made really and actually sinners.' 



THE EXPOSITION. 305 

When we say that man has no righteousness of his own, we speak 
of him out of Christ ; but in Christ, and united to Him, he is made 
righteous, not by a fiction or imputation only of Christ's righteous- 
ness, but by a real and living spiritual union with a righteous head, 
as a righteous member, righteous by means of, as an effect of, the 
righteousness of that head, but not merely righteous by the 
transference of the righteousness of that head ; just as, in his natu- 
ral state, he is united to a sinful head as a sinful member, sinful 
hy means of, as an effect of, the sinfulness of that head, but not by 
transference of the sinfulness of that head." 

The same exposition, substantially, is presented by Luther, Calvin, 
and others too numerous to mention ; nor shall we attempt to offer 
a single remark touching the incomparable superiority, justness, 
and scriptural propriety of such an interpretation to that which 
the Socinian school offers as the mind of the apostle. That matter 
is left to the deliberate and serious judgment of our readers. 

We have already adverted to the fact that Chrysostom, and 
others of the Greek church who did not receive the doctrine of 
original sin, started the metonymic or figurative interpretation, — 
though it should be borne in mind, however, that he himself does 
not place the metonymy in the verb, as the Socinian exposition 
does, but in the noun andprtoXoi, which he would make to signify 
obnoxious to punishment and condemned to death. The conception 
thus initiated (and not entirely lost sight of by several of the scho- 
lastics) was called up by Erasmus, and then elaborated and matured 
by Socinus and his school, to give countenance and efficacy to their 
envenomed assault upon the doctrine of original sin as held and 
defended by the Church, and was for the same purpose then 
adopted by the Remonstrants and the later Semi-Pelagians, as 
Whitby and Dr. John Taylor ; and now Dr. Hodge, following in 
their wake, insists, in a style the most peremptory, upon taking 
the verb here, as also fjfiaprov in verse 12, in the same putative and 
merely forensic sense, though utterly unsupported in his attempt. 

And then further. Experienced hunters generally will calculate 
beforehand what to do with the game they are endeavoring to 
capture should fortune be so kind as to place ,it at their disposal. 
But Dr. Hodge, who has had a most persevering chase after his 
game, seems never to have thought of this. He has captured for 
himself the metonymic interpretation, but seems at an utter loss 
20 



300 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



what to do with the prize. He offers it to the Church, but she,, 
having no use for it, declines the overture ; for it seems wholly 
impossible on his theory to clothe that interpretation with terms- 
which convey an intelligible idea. To say that the judgment unto 
condemnation came upon the race because they were sinners, is 
good sense and intelligible to all. But what conceivable meaning 
does it, or can it, convey to affirm, as Dr. Hodge does, that the 
judgment unto condemnation came upon them because they were 
regarded and treated as sinners ? For when were they, or token 
had they been, so regarded and treated ? Before this judgment 
came upon them ? By no means, says Dr. Hodge ; they were not 
guilty then, but guiltless ; and they were regarded and treated as 
sinners by the judgment unto condemnation coming upon them * 
that is, in other words, they were guiltless before the judgment 
came upon them, and it came upon them because they were re- 
garded and treated as sinners by the judgment coming upon them. 
If the language, in consistency with the theory in question, can be 
made to bear any other probable construction, I shall sincerely re- 
gret it has escaped me. But if not, I have only to ask, whether 
any man, not blinded by prejudice for a theory, can really sup- 
pose that the apostle would have advanced a statement so utterly 
" unthinkable" as this ? 

Result of the Investigation. 

In view of the examination of this exegesis we are presented 
with the following results : 

A tremendous announcement is affirmed to be made in the divine 
word, to the effect that God imputes sin gratuitously to the pos- 
terity of Adam ! — an announcement the purport of which, despite 
all attempted salvos, reverses alike the settled convictions and the 
spontaneous utterances of our moral nature in relation to the good- 
ness, and equity, and justice of " the Judge of all the earth." 
The proof of the allegation is demanded, and we are thereupon 
referred to the analogy instituted in this passage (Rom. v. 12-21), 
and to an assumed inference deduced by Dr. Hodge from a little 
corner of that analogy ; an analogy which sets forth in such a way 
as is best calculated to win man's grateful admiration and heart- 
felt appreciation, God's infinite mercy and goodness to our ruined 
and helpless race. To expect such a disclosure at all, in such a 



EXPOSITION. RESULTS. 



307 



connection, would seem, a priori, quite out of the range of all pro- 
bability, since to allege that God condemns the guiltless, and with- 
out their own will or agency involves them in hopeless guilt and 
moral pollution, and consequent misery, is surely to bring forward 
a fearful offset to the doctrine of goodness and grace and mercy. 
But still, if the disclosure be really there, it must be reverentially 
received, although we might perhaps have not unreasonably sup- 
posed that such a doctrine, and fraught with such results to our 
moral convictions, and to the whole science of ethics and theology, 
would not have been left by the Holy Spirit to depend upon a 
mere inference, even if that inference were logically deducible, 
but would be made the subject of at least one express dogmatic 
announcement. A thorough examination of the proffered passage, 
however, demonstrates that this asserted inference has really no- 
thing to sustain or even countenanced, but is, On the contrary, an 
unfounded and arbitrary assumption, and that it has always been 
so regarded by the Church. And not only so, but that the basis 
from which it is attempted to be deduced is not really an interpre- 
tation of the language employed by the apostle, but an attempt to 
force upon his words a meaning foreign to, and at direct variance 
with, the usus loqaeyidi of the inspired writers ; that is, that none 
of the terms on which the inter jyretation is claimed to he based are 
employed in any such sense in the sacred Scriptures ; and, more- 
over, that the Church herself has never attached any such mean- 
ing to those terms. These results, amongst others, have been 
clearly reached by this examination, and both they and the ground 
of them are before our readers. 

Dr. Hodge, moreover, had affirmed that those who reject his 
inference aforesaid, and refuse to accept the theory he would base 
thereon, reject a doctrine fundamental to the Protestant theology ; 
and he has directly inculcated along with this that his exegesis, 
and the theory based thereon, exhibit the doctrine entertained by 
the whole Church, and are, moreover, sustained by the great body 
of her commentators and critics. A careful and thorough exam- 
ination, however, has demonstrated that this is in no sense the fact ; 
but, on the contrary, that the great body of approved expositors 
and divines, both Calvinist and Lutheran, have not only never re- 
ceived or endorsed his theory, but have repudiated and refuted it 
as logically subversive of the whole system of grace. And further. 



* 



308 ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

that this exegesis is admitted by no eminent expositor of the pre- 
sent time, all of whom regard as arbitrary criticism the attempts 
which have at any time been made to give it countenance. 

Then, moreover, and in view of all this, Dr. Hodge reissues his 
Commentary in a "Revised Edition." But instead of assaying 
therein to grapple with these facts, or in any way to meet the 
weighty issues they present to him in view of his peremptory as- 
severations, he merely reiterates his assumptions, and with in- 
creased peremptoriness denounces the results of those laborious 
investigations, and treats the doctrine of our participation in the 
first sin (which those investigations had shown to be indubitably 
the doctrine of the Church and of the passage in question), as un- 
worthy of serious attention, and speaks of it as mystic and Pan- 
theistic nonsense, which does not rise to the dignity of a contra- 
diction, and has no meaning at all ; and in view of it, and of the 
aforesaid recognition of it by the Church, affirms that "it is a 
monstrous evil to make the Bible contradict the common sense 
and common consciousness of men," (page 236); thus calling up 
and reiterating, in order to sustain his exegesis and the issues he 
had raised by his most inaccurate representations, the very denun- 
ciation and sarcasm which the Socinians had employed for the like 
purpose. 

In the meanwhile, and soon after the appearance of my former 
essay in the Danville Review, the announcement was heralded that 
Dr. Hodge was preparing his theological lectures for publication. 
Expectation was thereupon aroused, and the discussion of the sub- 
ject suspended, and the Church herself kept in waiting during a 
long series of years in order to receive his deliberate and matured 
solution of the very issues which he himself had raised. But when 
some ten years elapse and the volumes appear, they are found to 
contain a mere bald and unsupported repetition of his previous as- 
sumptions, without any attempted solution of the questions which 
had been raised by his departure from the recognized faith of the 
Church. Not one conception differing from his previous assump- 
tions ; no explanation or retraction ; while he at the same time 
reiterates his most offensive allegations, charging that those who 
accede not to his baseless assumptions reject the doctrine of impu- 
tation, and are in fundamental error ; that is, in other words (for 
it all amounts to this), that they who reject the exegesis which the 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. 



309 



Socinians and Semi-Pelagians elaborated for the plain purpose of 
destroying the doctrine of original sin, and who will not concede 
that the exegesis which the Church insisted on in reply thereto is 
absurd and nonsensical, do not really entertain the doctrine of the 
Church, but err fundamentally in regard to it, and are in a fair way 
to reject the imputation of Christ's righteousness for justification ; 
and all this while at the same time his whole theory is based upon 
an unfounded assumption, at variance with all the perfections of 
the divine nature, and is condemned alike by the inspired word 
and by the teaching of the Church of God. The facts by which 
these statements are established are before the reader, and let him 
determine whether they are not adequately sustained. 

While I would earnestly endeavor to avoid any expression of 
unkindness in view of these most unwarrantable assaults and accu- 
sations of heresy, fealty to the truth will not permit me to say 
less than that, if the theology and scholarship of the Presbyterian 
Church are willing to accept of all this, let there be no complaint 
of the forfeiture of her prestige, which in that case becomes in- 
evitable ! 

We now return to the theological discussion. 

There are many important topics still remaining which call for 
consideration in connection with our theme, as e. g., his doctrine 
of sin and guilt ; his definition of punishment ; his doctrine of the 
justice of God, etc., etc. ; each of which we had intended to con- 
sider in its relation to his theory ; for they are all, in the sense in 
which the Church has always understood them, seriously affected 
by that theory ; but our volume already is as large as we had in- 
tended it should be, and we shall therefore confine our attention 
to those topics only which are most manifestly related to the argu- 
ment as hitherto pursued. 

§ 26. The Eelation which KeAson Sustains to the Issue in 

Question. 

Since. Dr. Hodge has repeatedly affirmed that the doctrine of 
our participation in the first sin is impossible and nonsensical, and 
that if received would make the Bible contradict the common 
sense and common consciousness of men (see § 8, above), a brief 
inquiry into the relation which reason and philosophy do sustain 
to the issue will be here in place, not only as of high importance 



310 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



intrinsically considered, but as developing still further the logical 
affinities of the scheme we are examining, and of the positions 
which the Doctor is compelled to assume in its support. "We 
therefore appropriate the present and the succeeding section to 
the inquiry. 

I employ the term reason here in the popular sense in which it 
is usually employed in the like connection, and not in that of the 
impersonal, universal and absolute, so expatiated upon by the 
French philosophers, who allege it to be also divine — a light 
which is not ours, but is a revelation from Grod, etc. And I refer 
to it as existing in and manifested by the individual ; for what- 
ever perfection may be claimed for it in the abstract, about which 
there is a vast amount of unmeaning and pointless speculation, no 
mere man since the fall has ever evinced, except in theory, that he 
was the possessor of any such transcendent or immaculate attri- 
bute. We would therefore guard our readers against the con- 
fusion so often apparent in treating the subject, and through 
which claimants for the perfectability and absoluteness of reason 
are not unfrequently induced to infer that their own individual 
reason must be also of this nature, and its dicta consequently of 
like character. Reason in itself can only be right and perfect; 
but as blinded and enfeebled by depravity and sin, it is invariably 
imperfect and prone to fallacy. 1 

When it is proposed, therefore, to inquire into the relation 
w T hich reason sustains to the issue before us, it is not, of course, 
meant what relation is sustained thereto by that absolute, universal 
and perfect reason asserted by Cousin and others ; for such inquiry 
here would be profitless, if not absurd ; but what relation to the is- 
sue is sustained by that natural light — or, if you please, power — by 
which, in our exercise of the understanding unaided by revelation, 
we distinguish truth from its antagonisms ? Or, in the language of 
Sir William Hamilton, to " our intelligent nature in general, as 
distinguished from the lower cognitive faculties, as sense, imagina- 

1 Vcetius observes very strikingly, that " Ratio humana proprie dicta con- 
siderari potest. I., vel in indea, seu objective, et abstracte; vel concrete, seu 
subjective, et ratione certi status, scilicet, ante lap sum et dotata imagine Dei ; 
in lapsu. ut corrupta ; in gratia, ut liberata, quamvis imperfecta ; in gloria, 
ut perfecte collustrata lumine gloria?." Selectee Disputationes, Tom. I., p. 2. 
(Ultrajecti, 1648.) 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. 



311 



tion, and memory ; and in contrast to the feelings and desires, in- 
cluding 1, Conception; 2, Judgment: 3, Seasoning; 1, Intelli- 
gence, voD?." 1 

It will be proper just here to restate the issue involved in our 
discussion, that so the province of reason in its relation thereto 
may be readily apprehended. 

Should we affirm that the posterity of Adam sinned by person- 
ally and actually eating of the forbidden tree, we should affirm what 
the inspired text does not teach, and what the Church neither as- 
serts nor believes. But when we affirm that they sinned when he 
sinned, and so participated in his guilt, and with him were con- 
stituted sinners, we affirm only that which the passage before us 
avers. We are content with the announcement (without any at- 
tempted philosophical refinement), that they sinned in such a sense 
as to constitute them veritable sinners — dfiaprmkoc; and so as to 
bring them righteously under the zplpa si? xardzptfia, or punitive 
justice of God. Dr. Hodge, on the other hand, claims with the 
Socinians, that this statement is contrary to reason, impossible and 
absurd, and that, therefore, as God does not require that we be- 
lieve anything absurd, the passage neither teaches, nor was in- 
tended to teach, any such doctrine. So stands the case. 

The points of argument are, 1, In the use of terms ; for on both 
sides it is agreed to say that all the race sinned in Adam, and 
were thereupon constituted sinners. The disagreement, however, 
is as to the signification attached to those terms ; 2 Dr. Hodge af- 
firming that the sinning in Adam was only forensic or putative, 
and that the race were constituted sinners only forensically or 
putatively, though regarded and treated as actually such, while 
the Church affirms that the sinning was real and actual, and that 
posterity were thereby constituted sinners, not only putatively, but 
really and veritably. 

2. Both alike also agree that the posterity of Adam did not in 
the fall sin in their individual personality. But the conclusions 
from this admitted fact are very wide apart, Dr. Hodge maintain- 
ing that, if they did not sin in their individual personality, they 
could not have sinned at all ; and we, on the contrary, affirming 
that, though they sinned not in their proper personality, they 
nevertheless did so sin, virtually or originally, as to appropriate 
1 Keitl's Works. Jsote A., Section 5. 2 See our Section 3. above. 



312 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

ethically the guilt and moral corruption which were contracted by 
our progenitors in the fall. 

Let it be therefore noted by the reader, that in the reference 
which Dr. Hodge would make to reason and common sense, rea- 
son is not called to determine whether the posterity of Adam sin- 
ned in their proper personality when he sinned, for there is no 
issue on that point ; but whether in their case there could exist 
such community or spontaneity in the ethical appropriation of 
this guilt and moral corruption as to constitute them participants 
therein, and, on that ground, subjectively deserving of a participa- 
tion of the punishment it incurred ? This is the question. And 
whether it is one on which reason is competent to utter a deter- 
mination will appear presently. For if she is not thus competent, 
then it is no very striking evidence of being under her guidance 
to insist on submitting it to such adjudication, or to appeal to her 
sentence as in any sense decisive. A very proper query, however, 
is here suggested which should not be overlooked, as it furnishes 
a really adequate ground on which reason may at least con- 
template, if not approximate the issue, to-wit : Whether an ac- 
ceptance of the affirmative of this proposition (that is, that we 
truly sinned in the first sin), can be as inconsistent with true rea- 
son and common sense as it is to believe with Dr. Hodge that a 
good, truthful, and righteous God would first charge pure and in- 
nocent beings with having committed a sin which they never did 
commit, and then judicially inflict upon them, as a punishment of 
that sin, the tremendous penalty of moral corruption and spiritual 
death ? — a sin, too, with which they not only had no connection, 
but which to them was, in every sense of the term, a peccatum 
alienum, or foreign sin? — that is, in other words, whether, from 
the knowledge we have of the character of God as derived from 
both His word and works, such a conception can really be re- 
garded in any other light than as nonsensical, and as not ascend- 
ing to the dignity of a contradiction ? This query, moreover, may 
be regarded as a truly legitimate topic for her adjudication, inas- 
much as there is not in all the divine word the faintest utterance 
attributing any such character to the Most High. 

So stands the question ; and in view of it Dr. Hodge's position 
is, that to affirm that the divine word announces any such partici- 
pation, or spontaneity in the ethical appropriation of guilt, on the 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. 



313 



part of the posterity of Adam in the first sin, is to affirm that it 
teaches what is ridiculous and impossible ; while, on the contrary,, 
we affirm that the announcement of the fact in the inspired record,, 
and in terms which admit of no other signification, is all that is 
needed to justify its reception as true, and that we therefore ac- 
cept it as a fact. And then, furthermore, there are strong pre- 
sumptions (though we need them not in support of our position) 
against this assumption of Dr. Hodge, and which may be regarded 
as confirmatory and illustrative of the truth he thus rejects : 1, In 
the fact that this announcement, accepted as an explanatory prin- 
ciple, furnishes the only intelligible basis on which to explicate 
the doctrine of original sin consistently with the justice and good- 
ness of God. 2, That we cannot, in the present stage of our be- 
ing, expect to comprehend all that pertains to the original unity 
of the race as created in cn^n, or as evolved in the almost infini- 
tude of its distinct personalities. And 3, In the fact that we find 
a perfect unity, as well as distinct personality, in the divine nature,, 
after whose image and likeness man was created, and that without 
it the whole doctrine of redemption is admitted to be both incom- 
prehensible and impossible, and that therefore, until reason can 
claim to know all that may pertain to the distinct personality of 
the race in the relation it sustains to its original unity, and vice 
versa, she would venture absurdly beyond her appropriate sphere 
by alleging anything dogmatically on the subject, especially when 
her allegation is in plain conflict with a divine averment. It is 
not her voice, therefore, which presumes to allege that such an 
announcement, literally taken, is ridiculous and impossible. Weak 
through human imperfection, and liable to err as she may be, she 
has never from her legitimate domain uttered any such dictum. 
And she herself is fully aware that out of that domain her dog- 
matic utterances are entitled to no regard ; and consequently for 
Dr. Hodge to asseverate such a statement on the assumed basis of 
reason or common sense is to assert it on a basis which sound rea- 
son not only does not claim, but which she peremptorily disclaims. 
So stands the case. And now let us view the subject in the light 
of an illustration. 

The Protestant church, in discussing with Socinus and his- 
school the doctrines of revealed religion, laid down broadly, and 
from the very outset, the principle that the announcements of the 



314 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Scriptures are to be received as facts admitted on the testimony of 
God, and that those averments are to be fearlessly followed, lead 
where they may. And moreover, that the belief of its declara- 
tions must not be made to depend upon our ability to explain, or 
even to understand, the m.odus of the facts announced ; but must 
be based upon the divine testimony alone. In other words, that 
any clearly ascertained declaration of the inspired word is to be 
received as veritable truth, independent of all considerations de- 
rived from our philosophy or so-called intuitions, or anything 
else. Such was their position. And since their time the princi- 
ple has been endorsed by the whole evangelical Church. And the 
following statement may be taken as presenting that view, in con- 
trast to the rationalizing proclivities of the present time : 

"In the statement of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity," 
says the late Robert Hall, " there are two extremes to be avoided. 
The one is that of pusillanimously shrinking from their bold ori- 
ginality, and attempting to recommend them to the acceptance of 
proud and worldly-minded men by the artifices of palliation and 
disguise, of which in our opinion the Bishop of Lincoln has given 
an egregious specimen in his late work. 1 The other extreme is 
that of stating them in a metaphysical form, mixing doubtful de- 
ductions with plain assertions, thereby encumbering them with 
needless refinements. We should neither be ashamed of the dic- 
tates of the Spirit, nor £ add to His words lest we be reproved.' 
They will always appear with the most advantage, and carry the 
most conviction, when they are exhibited in their native simplicity, 
without being mixed with heterogeneous matter, or with positions 
-of doubtful authority. In our apprehension, the true way of con- 
templating the peculiar doctrines of Christianity is to consider 
them as facts delivered on the authority of the Supreme Being, 
not to be proved by reason, since their truth does not result from 
any perceptible relations in our ideas ; but they owe their existence 
-entirely to the will and counsel of the Almighty Potentate. On 
this account we never consider it safe to rest their truth on a 
philosophical basis, nor imagine it is possible to add to their evi- 
dence by an elaborate train of reasoning. Let the fair gram- 
matical import of Scripture language be investigated, and what- 
ever propositions are by an easy and natural interpretation de- 

1 Entitled " A Refutation of Calvinism." 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. 



315 



ducible from thence, let them he received as the dictates of infinite 
wisdom, whatever aspect they bear and whatever difficulties they 
present. Repugnant to reason they never can be, because they 
spring from the author of it ; but superior to reason, whose limits 
they will infinitely surpass, we must expect to find them, since 
they are a communication of such matters of fact, respecting the 
spiritual and eternal world, as need not have been communicated 
if the knowledge of them could have been acquired from any 
other quarter." 1 

The followers of Socinus, however, have always taken the 
ground that this principle should be received only under decided 
restrictions. Astorodus and Smalcius boldly advanced, the posi- 
tion that, "sola ration e dijudicari possibilitatem et impossibilitate?n 
articulorum fidei, non esse credenda quce menti impossibilia viden- 
tur, summam religionem esse rationem." The same is asserted in 
the Racovian Catechism (pp. 37, 55, 56), and they applied it to 
the doctrine of the Trinity, the person and offices of Christ Jesus, 
and other doctrines which they wished to have a pretext for re- 
jecting. 2 And D'Aubigne (in his Authority of God), after ad- 
verting to a similar and increasing predilection at the present 
time, adverts as follows to the original controversy and its results : 
u I dread this subjective tendency of the times. I dread it, con- 
vinced that it cannot fail to have the same development, and the 
same consequences, that it had in the sixteenth century. You 
have remarked the sad progression of this opinion. Chatillon 
simply taught the doctrine which substitutes the authority of the 
individual spirit for the authority of divine scripture. But every 
seed bears its fruit. This doctrine, soon after professed by Soci- 
nus and Servetus, first overthrew all the doctrines of faith ; then, 
interpreted by Coppin, Pocquet, Gruet, and the Libertines, over- 
threw all the precepts of morality. It thus brought forth great 
heresies and frightful irregularities. The progression is terrible, 

but inevitable The foundation of Christian dogma and 

Christian morality is involved in these opinions" 3 

The like effort has been attempted in our own country to reject 
this same principle unless accompanied with the aforesaid restric- 

1 Works of Rev. Robert Hall, Vol. II., p. 309. (New York, 1832.) 

2 See the first of the Selectee Disputationes of Voetius, under the title 11 Be 
Ratione humana in Rebus fidei." 3 Cited in Pearson on Infidelity, p. 226. 



316 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



tion. Take for example the case of the late Dr. William Ellery 
Charming, who employs the following language in the endeavor to 
justify a rejection of the doctrine of the Trinity: "The Bible 
treats of subjects on which we receive ideas from other sources 
besides itself, such subjects as the nature, passions, relations, and 
duties of man, and it expects us to restrain and modify its lan- 
guage by the known truths which observation and experience 

furnish on these topics In other words, we believe that 

God never contradicts in revelation what He teaches in His works 
of providence. A?id we therefore distrust every interpretation 
vihich, after deliberate attention, seems repugnant to any established 
truth." And he adds: "Without these principles of interpreta- 
tion, we frankly acknowledge that we cannot defend the divine 
authority of the Scriptures." 1 

He then, in the pages which follow, proceeds to apply these 
principles, and says : " We object to the doctrine of the Trinity, 

that it 'subverts the unity of God Here, then, we have 

three intelligent agents possessed of different consciousnesses, dif- 
ferent wills, etc. . . . . It is a difference of properties, and acts, 
and consciousness, which leads us to the belief of different intel- 
ligent beings. And if this must fail our whole knowledge fails." 
(Pp. 8, 9.) u We complain of the doctrine of the Trinity, that, 
not satisfied with making God three beings, it makes Jesus Christ 
two beings, and thus introduces infinite confusion into our concep- 
tions of His character. This corruption of Christianity, alike re- 
pugnant to common sense and the general strain of Scripture'^ is a 
remarkable proof of the power of a false philosophy in disfiguring 
the simple truth of Jesus P (P. 11.) 

Dr. Hodge, as we have seen, having advanced the same principle 
*in the effort to defend his exposition of Romans v. 12-21, makes 
the very same application of it against the received doctrine — that 
all so sinned in Adam as to become veritable sinners. And in a 
passage already quoted, and so like the foregoing from Dr. Chan- 
ning that it might be taken for a continuation, he says, " It is a. 
monstrous evil to make the Bible contradict the common sense 
and common consciousness of men." 2 

1 Sermon on 1 Thess. v. 24, pp. 4-7. 

2 Revised Commentary on Romans, page 200. See also Princeton Repertory; 
for 1860, pages 356-358. 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. . 317 

If, then, this language, in the application here made of it, means 
anything, that is, if it has any relevancy to the point to which it is 
addressed, it clearly conveys the idea that an a priori conception 
of the so-called reason or common sense may, in a given instance, 
determine that revelation has not taught what its language, gram- 
matically interpreted, does affirm ; or, in other words, that reason 
.and common sense may determine a priori, and independently of 
the divine word, that a given statement of doctrine or fact therein 
announced cannot be true, and therefore can really form no part 
of a divine revelation, since on this ground Dr. Hodge asseverates 
that the statement that we veritably sinned in Adam is nonsensical 
(and revelation, of course, can teach nothing nonsensical), and on 
this ground affirms that the Bible does not so allege. On the same 
ground, likewise, the Socinians affirm that the doctrines of the two 
natures in Christ, and of the Trinity, are nonsensical, and cannot, 
of course, therefore, constitute any part of a revelation from God. 
Such, then, is the plain import of the language, and thus (should 
we accept the principle) we are brought squarely upon the Ration- 
alistic platform, that reason is competent to determine a priori 
what may or may not constitute the subject-matter of revelation, 
-and consequently what we may or may not believe in regard to its 
-announcements. 1 

2s ow, it is on this very ground that the Socinians affirm that 
the Bible does not teach the doctrine of the Trinity ; the hyposta- 
tical union ; the doctrine of satisfaction for sin ; our participation 
in the first sin ; and other correlated doctrines. They claim that 
it is perfectly monstrous to make the Scriptures speak on these 
subjects what common sense and common consciousness regard as 
absurd and nonsensical. But as the whole subject, in its existing 
relation to our Church, demands a more extended illustration of 
the effects of the adoption of the principle, we shall cite several 
other equally pertinent instances. 

The truly learned Emlyn, for example, in his Reply to Leslie, 
sums up as follows the aim of his whole effort in this direction — 
he says : " I assure you (I) am actuated herein by no passion except 
it be a passionate desire of seeing our holy Christian religion 
rescued from the burdens of contradictions." 2 His method of 

1 See, in the American Biblical Repository for 1831, page 111, seq., the very 
able expose by Professor Hahn of this principle as affirmed by the Rationalists. 

2 Tracts by Thomas Emlyn, page 231. (London, 1719.) 



318 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



rescuing it he had already detailed, and it is as follows : He per- 
emptorily insists on being furnished with an express definition of 
Trinity from those who accept the doctrine, and finding all at- 
tempt fraught with absurdity, he refuses to accept the plain decla- 
rations of the Scriptures on the subject, because, when literally 
taken, they (as he says) teach absurdities ; whereas revelation it- 
self can teach no absurdities. The following is an extract : " How- 
ever, will this sort of Trinity, like the three operations of man's 
mind, accord with the Scripture Trinity of the Father, Son, and 
Spirit, who have such distinct parts and agencies assigned 'em a& 
cannot be so much as shadowed by our three faculties ? You 
grant the Father was not incarnate, but the Son. Can the under- 
standing be incarnate, and sent, and humbled, etc., and not the 
will f Are not the three faculties always in the same human mind, 
which is incarnate without division ? Do you teach us that the 
divine nature is incarnate without its understanding or Father 
faculty? No," etc. (Pages 201, 202.) Thus, in exact accord 
with the method pursued by Dr. Hodge in demanding a definite 
statement as to how the race sinned in Adam, Mr. Emlyn de- 
mands a definition of the Trinity and incarnation, and bases his 
attempted refutation of the doctrine itself upon the vain endeavors 
of reason to define that which God has communicated merely as 
an explanatory principle. 1 

Emlyn himself was an Arian. But as another representative 
man (so far as this principle is concerned), and who was a Soci- 
nian, we may cite Dr. Morgan, who is equally well known to 
English ecclesiology in the beginning of the last century. In page 

1 " Nothing is more certain than that Christianity is a system which is at 
present but partially developed, in condescension probably to our very limited 
faculties, which are incapable of comprehending it in its full extent." {Robert 
Hall, Yol. I., page 279.) Berkley also says: " Is it at all absurd or unsuit- 
able to the notion we have of God or man to suppose that God may reveal 
with a reserve upon certain remote and sublime subjects, content to give us 
hints and glimpses, rather than views ? May we not also suppose, from the 
reason of things and the analogy of nature, that some points, which might 
otherwise have been more clearly explained, were left obscure merely to en- 
courage our diligence and modesty ? Two virtues which, if it might not seem 
disrespectful to such great men, I would recommend to the minute philoso- 
phers." (See Minute Philosopher, Dialogue VI., pages 226, 227. London, 
1752.) 

/ 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. 319 

14 of the preface to the revised edition of his Tracts, 1 he says : 
"This, -then, I think, must be clear and certain, that no doctrines 
can be reasonably received as coming from God, or be capable of 
any confirmation by miracles, that are either absurd, inconsistent, 

contradictory in themselves, hurtful, etc And that, whatever 

pretences or appearances of divine authority may be vouchsafed 
for such doctrines, either the original revelation itself must have 
been a forgery, or else the sense in which they are thus understood 
cannot he the true sense." Then, in the work itself, he says: "And 
from hence it is plain that nothing can be true as a matter of faith 
that is inconsistent with or repugnant to any clear, established 
principle of reason, since to affirm this must necessarily destroy 
the nature and foundation of truth," etc. (Pp. 155,156.) Again: 
"ITo man can receive anything as a revelation from God, or be 
influenced by the future prospects of religion, or the sanctions of 
eternal fife and death, but by acting in conformity to this natural,, 
immutable law of nature." (P. 159.) 

Now, the very principle which Dr. Hodge has applied to justify 
his rejection of the doctrine of participation underlies and sustains- 
the whole of this ratiocination; and, granting that principle, these 
inferences follow as inexorably as death. But let us accompany 
Dr. Morgan a little farther. Alter affirming the above, and more 
of like import, he proceeds to apply the principle so as to divest 
the Scriptures of the doctrine of the Trinity, the deity of Jesus y 
and His expiation of sin, etc. The following is an instance of 
such application; and the argument, according to the principle af- 
firmed by Dr. Hodge, is perfectly unanswerable. He says : "All 
that the Socinians say is, that the supreme God and a human soul 
cannot be the same intelligent being, agent, or person ; and there- 
fore that they cannot, with any truth or consistency, be joined to- 
gether under one common name, as if they were the same I, the 
same He, or the same intelligent agent or personal self. And 
really, sir, methinks it is a little hard that men should be damned 
because they will not talk the grossest nonsense and renounce the 
very first principles of reason." (P. 239.) 

Dr. Priestley took the same position, which, in his case and that 
of his followers, was ably exposed by the late Dr. Samuel Miller, 
of Princeton Seminary, in his Letters on Unitarianism. But we 
1 Collection of Tracts, by T. Morgan, M. D. (London, 1726.) 



320 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



pass this, and conclude these illustrative extracts with the follow- 
ing passages from a large volume of Unitarian tracts, published in 
Philadelphia, 1 and in which the writer, after referring to the doc- 
trines of the Trinity, satisfaction, justification by faith, etc., pro- 
ceeds in the following strain: " Yet all these doctrines, you think, 
are warranted by the word of God. And do you really think, sir, 
that the said word can warrant such doctrines as these ? I think 
myself well authorized to declare them absurd, impossible, impious, 

and therefore false And as I esteem the revelation which 

God has given us in the Scriptures to be an invaluable treasure, I 
am very sorry to see it so sadly perverted as to be' made to coun- 
tenance opinions which are a reproach to religion." (Pp. 117, 118.) 
The whole, however, is of a piece ; and we could adduce hundreds 
of similar instances from the same school ; and if reason, therefore, 
is competent to declare that a fair, grammatical interpretation of 
God's own teaching may announce absurdities, then these men 
have only carried forward to its legitimate sequences the " strength" 
of the principle now applied by Dr. Hodge to the received doc- 
trine of original sin. But if such is not the province of reason, 
then he, in denouncing that doctrine, and in thus endeavoring 
to substitute in lieu of it his theory of the gratuitous imputation 
of sin, has affirmed a principle which at once brings those who 
adopt it into logical association and sympathy with this whole 
school of antagonists to evangelical truth or the doctrines of grace ; 
for if the principle will sustain his assault, it will also, in like 
manner, fully sustain theirs. 

The antagonism of this so-called principle of interpretation (as 
affirmed in the foregoing extracts) to the true and recognized 
principles of Scripture hermeneutics has been adverted to in § 25, 
and may be at once perceived by the following canon, as presented 
by Ernesti, 1 and which I give in the translation of the late Pro- 
fessor Stuart : 3 " We must not hastily conclude any sentiment of 
the Seriptures to be unreasonable. The meaning which, accord- 
ing to grammatical principles, should be assigned to any word 
of Scripture, is not to be rejected, then, on account of reasons 

1 In the year 1810. The publication is anonymous. 

1 Instit. Interpret., Parte I., Sect L, Cap. I., § 21, p. 31. (Ammon's Edition, 
1809.) 

3 Elements of Interpretation, translated by Moses Stuart, § 36. 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. 



321 



derived from things or previously conceived opinions ; for in this 
way interpretation would become uncertain. In books merely 
human, if reason and the nature of the subject are repugnant to 
the apparent sense of the words, we conclude there must have 
been either a fault in the writer or an error in the copyist. In the 
Scriptures, if any sentiment does not agree with our opinions, we 
must remember the imbecility of human reason and human fac- 
ulties; we must seek for conciliation, and not attempt a correction 
of the passage without good authority. It is wonderful that in 
this matter more reverence should be paid to mere human pro- 
ductions than to the sacred books. 

"In ancient authors, when any difficulty occurs, we seek for 
correction or conciliation, as if they must be rendered dvafiapzTjrot, 
faultless ; but occasion is often taken of carping at the writers of 
the Scriptures, or of perverting their meaning or the doctrines 
which they teach." This rule is perpetually violated by the Soci- 
nian exegesis of Romans v. 12-21, which Dr. Hodge has so fully 
adopted. 

When an intelligent trinitarian is asked, " What is the specific 
nature of that distinction in the Godhead which you designate by 
the term person 1 " he answers frankly, " I am unable to say. My 
belief of the fact that there is a distinction does not depend upon 
my ability to explain the nature of the distinction itself." And 
this reply is every way reasonable and sufficient. We likewise 
make the same rejoinder when asked to explain how, or in what way 
the posterity of Adam so sinned in the first sin as to become, in 
the true and proper sense of the term, sinners? — afidprwXoi — "We 
do not know. Our faith is in no way concerned with the mode, 
but simply with the fact announced." And this reply is by parity 
of reason equally sufficient. 

It is not a difficult matter to perplex the common mind by de- 
nouncing as unintelligible or "unthinkable" a proposition the 
subject of which is merely mdeflnable. 1 Unitarians have frequently 
done the like in regard to the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the 
person of Christ; and Dr. Hodge also has not scrupled to do the 
like in relation to the issue before us. But whatever applause 
such efforts may elicit on the score of adroitness, it can hardly be 
regarded as in keeping with the earnest and sincere desire that 

1 See the Supplement at the end of this section. 
21 



322 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



truth may be brought to light. Even the conscientious barrister, 
in addressing a jury on a subject of vital interest, will shun the 
unworthy procedure. 

Professor Stuart in his Reply to Dr. Channing, adverting to the 
principle embodied in the foregoing quotations from that eminent 
Unitarian, unfolds its pernicious tendency as follows: "In reject- 
ing any doctrine which the language of Scripture plainly teaches, 
common sense must cast off the divine authority of the Bible. To 
receive the Bible as a revelation from God, and yet decide a 
priori what the Scriptures can and what they cannot contain, and 
then to make the language- bend until it conform with our deci- 
sion, cannot surely be a proper part to be acted by any sincere 

lover of truth and sober investigation In regard to the 

impossibility that Christ should possess two natures, and the 
absurdity of such a supposition, I have not much to say. If the 
Scriptures are the word of God, and do contain the doctrine in 
question, it is neither impossible nor absurd. Most certainly, if it 
be a fact that Christ possesses two natures, it is a fact with which 
natural religion has no concern, at least of which it has no satis- 
factory knowledge. It can therefore decide neither for nor 
against it. It is purely a doctrine of revelation, and to Scripture 
only can we look for evidences of it. If the doctrine be palpably 
absurd and contradictory to reason, and yet is found in the Bible, 
then we must reject the claims of the Bible to inspiration and 
truth. But if the laws of interpretation do not permit us to 
avoid the conclusion that it is found there, we cannot with any 
consistency admit that the ^Scriptures are of divine authority and 
yet reject the doctrine." 1 The application of this whole para- 
graph to the issue before us is too obvious to require remark. 
And the observations apply at the present time with redoubled 
force to the questions involved in that issue, when such strenuous 
efforts are everywhere being made to have the Church discard 
the doctrine of the plenary inspiration of the Scriptures, and 
when such multitudes of professing Christians seem to be only 
waiting a plausible pretext to set them entirely aside as the rule 
of faith and practice. And we can truly say to those who pursue 
such a course, what Augustine (in lib. 17, Cont. Faustum, cap. 3), 
says to the Manichees: " Undique ter giver satio vestra confunditur. 

1 Letter II., see his Miscellanies, pp. 48, 49. 



REASON AND THE ISSUE. 



323 



Aperte dicite vos non credere evangelio ; namqui in evangelio quod 
vultis creditis ; quod vultis non creditis, vobis potius quam evan- 
gelio creditis." 1 

The question at issue, therefore, is not one that can be brought 
into the province of reason for adjudication any more than the 
question as to the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity itself. And 
I repeat, that the distinction and unity in the latter case, though 
wholly undefinable by man, underlies, as an explanatory principle, 
the whole doctrine of redemption, which cannot be even conceived 
as possible without it, and is the basis of all those precious dis- 
closures of the divine character in view of which the proffers of 
grace and salvation are made to perishing men; while in the 
other case, as an explanatory principle, it underlies, and is the 
very basis of the whole doctrine of original sin, as understood and 
taught from the beginning, and on which alone it becomes really 
explicable and reconcilable with the divine perfections; and the 
denial of which is fraught with the logical and inevitable impeach- 
ment of the justice and goodness of God, while at the same time, 
it mars the entire harmony of His moral perfections, as well as 
the whole doctrine of human accountability. 

The practical aspect, however, in which the subject has become 
of absorbing interest to our communion, is, that though Dr. Hodge 
himself may continue to occupy his present standpoint without 
following up the noxious principle to its logical and practical 
sequences, she can have no guarantee to assure her that some of 
her youth who have accepted it from his inculcations may not carry 
it fully forward to the practical realization of those results. A 
principle apparently harmless in its nature was suggested to the 
mind of Semler while listening to his teacher, Baumgten, and by 
him was thus carried forward ; and in the result brought with wide 
and baleful sweep the whole deluge of Rationalism upon the 
churches and universities of Germany. A like incautious utterance 
of the venerated Doddridge, in the hearing of the then youthful 
Priestley, led him ultimately to renounce his Calvinistic views, 
and resulted in endowing Unitarianism with new life and vigor, 
and in extending its blighting influence through England and 
Scotland, as well as to many parts of our own land. In the latter 
instance it is true that Dr. Ashworth, by judicious treatment, might 
1 Cited in Selectee Disputationes Vcetii, Tom. I., p. 5. 



324 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

have hindered the development of the fatal germ ; but in both in- 
stances, after the poison had begun to spread, any earnest effort to 
place the evangelical churches upon their guard, in that day of 
nationalistic proclivities and shallow theologizing, would have en- 
countered prejudice, and proscription at the hand of those who 
" have men's persons in admiration because of advantage," not dis- 
similar to that which was called forth in consequence of the effort 
made through the Danville lleview to awaken attention to the 
perilous aberrations of Dr. Hodge. 

The plea that, elsewhere in his Theology, and in relation to 
another doctrine, the Doctor has found it necessary, and so deemed 
it expedient, to assert the very principle which he here so uncere- 
moniously discards, is of no avail, so far as avoiding or neutralizing 
the aforesaid evil consequences is concerned. What he would 
hope to gain by such a course must be left to others to imagine. 
But an assertion of the principle, in connection with some other 
doctrine of our system, is no more a retraction of its opposite in 
connection with the doctrine before us, than the assertion of its 
opposite in the present connection is a retraction of it in the other 
connection ; for both are directly affirmed, and neither the one nor 
the other is in any way retracted or modified. Can it be supposed 
by any, therefore, who lay claim to reason and intelligence, that a 
man, especially in the work of instructing those who are to teach 
others the truth relating to salvation, may properly pursue a course 
like this, and inculcate in ethics and religion principles mutually 
subversive of each other \ Is such a procedure in relation to vital 
and fundamental truth to be extenuated or justified on any ground 
whatever ? And then, moreover, in such inculcations one or the 
other position must, of course, be expected to become the practi- 
cal or controlling one with those upon whom they are inculcated, 
for both cannot be ; and the one bedecked with the tawdry and 
meretricious attire of falsehood is, upon first appearance, always 
more likely than the true to captivate the young and ardent. Dr. 
Hodge could not, for example, inculcate the doctrine of the 
Trinity upon the principle on which he assails and denounces the 
doctrine of our participation in the first sin ; for to employ it in 
that connection (though fully as applicable there as it is in rela- 
tion to the doctrine of participation) would, as he could not but 
know, compel him to reject that doctrine also. He could not 



SUPPLEMENTAL TO SECTION TWENTY-SIX. 



325 



hope to carry liis assault upon the doctrine of participation, and so 
sustain his theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin on this 
ground, and therefore in this connection he adopts and employs 
the principle he was obliged to discard when treating on the 
Trinity. And he has, moreover, along with the principle itself, 
introduced into the sacred enclosure of our cherished doctrine the 
exegesis and vapid denunciation and sarcasm of the Socinian school. 
If the principle, however, be valid, it is of course valid alike in 
both cases ; and to treat it as both true and false, according as ex- 
pediency may require, and as Dr. Hodge has attempted, is not only 
to trifle with a most serious subject, but to pursue a course which, 
if not arrested, must sooner or later result in a surrender of the 
whole truth in relation thereto into the hands of her foes. 

Supplemental to Section Twenty-Six. 
" Unthinkable Propositions" 

From the reference which Br. Hodge makes to the language of 
Baur in relation to "unthinkable" propositions, as referred to re- 
peatedly in this work, and from his adoption of the language itself ? 
as well as to sustain his own charge that the doctrine of our parti- 
cipation in the first sin (?. <?., sinning when Adam sinned) is an 
unthinkable proposition, we have concluded to add a few words to 
this section, in the form of a note, touching the subject. 

The Church exposition of the phrase, " the guilt of Adam's first 
sin" (i. e., as imputed to his posterity), is, as we have seen, culpa 
participation — guilt by participation. And this, which was al- 
ways her doctrine, and which is affirmed by every Calvinistic or 
Augustinian theologian whom she regards as representative, has 
awakened from the first the envenomed hostility of the Pelagian 
and Socinian schools, and now of Baur (and his followers), who, 
in view of it, exclaims with ineffable contempt, " What is an act 
of a non-existing will, an act to which the nature of sin is attri- 
buted, although it lies entirely outside of the individual conscious- 
ness ? Can any meaning be attached to such a representation ? " 
And he pronounces the whole "unthinkable," — i. e., that of which 
we can form no intelligible conception. 1 He is, however, in this, 
only repeating after Socinus and his school, who sought to destroy 

1 Dr. Hodge fully endorses him in this. See Theol., Vol. II., pp. 178, 179, 
216, 223, 224, 244. 



326 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

the doctrine of our participation in the first sin ; that so, by making 
this sin of the posterity of Adam merely putative, and not real, 
they might prepare the way for abolishing the doctrine of a real 
■satisfaction through Christ ; for they well knew that a merely pu- 
tative sin could be expiated by a merely putative satisfaction, 
which, as already remarked, any holy or unfallen creature might 
accomplish ; and hence the necessity that our adorable Redeemer 
.should be truly God is at once exploded, and along therewith the 
doctrine of the Trinity and its correlated truths. And thus, too, 
Baur treats the conception, though entertained and affirmed by 
every representative divine of the Church from Augustine until 
now, and who, though fully aware of all the alleged grounds on 
which he and his followers denounce it, yet, una voce, affirm the 
subjective guilt of the race, through participation, as the ground 
of the imputation to it of the first sin. They regard this as a 
fundamental feature of Augustinian doctrine. 

The Church, as we have already stated, never claimed to under- 
stand how we sinned when Adam sinned, but simply accepts the 
divine averment that "all sinned" (Rom. v. 12, 18, 19), as an ex- 
planatory principle, akin to other equally inexplicable announce- 
ments of truth from the Holy Spirit ; e.g., that of the two natures 
in Christ, and the tri-unity of personality in the Godhead. But 
Pelagians, Socinians, and now Baur and his followers, have dis- 
covered that the announcement is unintelligible and nonsensical, 
v They pronounce it to be such on what they style purely scientific 
principles ; and as Baur has directed the whole force of his learn- 
ing and ratiocination in support of this allegation, we shall pro- 
ceed to consider his argument. 

From the course of his speculation, and of those who follow 
him therein, we learn that not only must the sense or meaning of 
a proposition be clear in order to its being intelligently received 
(in which, of course, all concur with them), but that the subject- 
matter, if we may so speak, must be such as is not only not con- 
tradictory in and of itself, but such as we can form some intelligent 
conception of, since otherwise, say they, it is impossible to assent 
to it. Now, we shall not stop here to press Dr. Hodge, and those 
other professors of orthodox doctrine who have adopted the specu- 
lation of Baur, with the necessity which such a speculation lays them 
under to reject likewise many others of the announcements of reve- 



SUPPLEMENTAL TO SECTION TWENTY-SIX. 



327 



lation in the application to which this principle has ever been wholly 
discarded by all evangelical churches ; but shall consider the ques- 
tion simply as to the alleged correctness of the principle itself. 

The basis of Baur's ratiocination is, that words must stand for 
precise ideas, so that when properly or definitely employed, that 
is, as signs of actual ideas, they must express a definite and intel- 
ligible meaning ; for, if not thus used, they convey no meaning, 
and are therefore employed without meaning, or nonsensically. 

For example, you resolve a proposition into its elements, or the 
terms by which it is expressed, examine the words, and ascertain 
what ideas they convey ; and if, as united in the proposition, they 
express an '''unthinkable" announcement, that is, combine to ex- 
press somewhat of which we can form no clearly intelligible con- 
ception, then, of course, that proposition conveys no meaning to 
the mind, and is necessarily "unthinkable," or nonsensical. The 
words subserve no purpose whatever, so far as concerns the con- 
veyance of knowledge, which consists in the perception of the 
connection or disagreement between ideas. But such a proposition 
conveys no idea, and how, then, are we to compare its announce- 
ment with actual ideas ? And then, further, a man cannot assent 
to such a proposition, for he knows not what to assent to, there 
being, in fact, nothing to which he can yield assent. Such seems 
to be the logical process by which the aforesaid conclusion is 
reached ; and though neither Baur nor Dr. Hodge has drawn it 
out syllogistically, or into formal argumentative statement, they 
unite in applying it to the subject-matter in hand as follows : To 
say that a man's " non-existing will " committed sin thousands of 
years before the man himself personally existed is a proposition 
of this character, and simply nonsensical; for it predicates coeta- 
neous existence and non-existence of one and the same object ; 
that is, it affirms that the object exists, and that at the same time 
it does not exist, which is simply to assert that the man acted be- 
fore he could act, and existed before he could have existed. 5Tou 
can therefore yield no assent to such a proposition, and of course 
cannot believe it. 1 

1 Pascal has well said: "The notion of original sin is foolishness to men, 
but such we allow it to be. We should not, therefore, condemn the want of 
reasonableness in this doctrine, for it is not assumed to be within the province 
of reason. At the same time this very foolishness is wiser than all the wisdom 



328 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



But passing the sheer folly (to which reference has already been 
made in this section) of attempting to apply such ratiocination to 
the direct disclosures and affirmations of Divine revelation, whose 
Author can neither lie nor deceive, we ask, Is such a conception 
of human language the true one ? If it be, then certainly Baur 
and Dr. Hodge have, in thousands of instances, set it at naught ; 
and we think it demonstrably certain that no man who has ever 
employed language intelligibly lias practically so regarded it, what- 
ever his theory might be. The principle that words may be sig- 
nificant, even when they do not stand for abstract ideas, is a prin- 
ciple which, ages agone, has been so thoroughly settled by science 
herself, that no well-informed mind would, upon adequate reflec- 
tion, even think of calling it in question ; and it is conceded to be 
a puerile absurdity to pretend that even every substantive name 
clearly exhibits to the mind a separate and precise idea. But we 
have no space for generalizing, and will therefore come at once to 
particulars in their direct relation to the matter before us. 1 

Take, for example, out of a thousand words which might be spe- 
cified, the term number. Every person employs it, and claims, 
moreover, to employ it intelligibly. But take the term itself, and 
separate its meaning from the signs, words, or things numbered, 
and what conception does it convey to the mind ? To conceive it 
is utterly out of the question, and impossible ; and it is as " un- 
thinkable " as Baur and Dr. Hodge would have the proposition to 
be which they united to condemn. You can form no abstract con- 
ception of it whatever ; and yet, of what incalculable use and ad- 
vantage are the numerical names ? What would trade, commerce, 
or, in a word, human intercourse be, without those unthinkable 
terms, or their equivalents ? Yet, according to the ratiocination 
referred to, a proposition which should contain the word number 
could not possibly be understood or believed, because you can at- 
tach no definite or distinct conception to that term, and are com- 
pelled to view it as inseparably associated with the often incon- 
gruous objects enumerated. These two things, therefore, are 

of men : ' The foolishness of God is wiser than men,' " Thoughts on Religion, 
p. 220. (Boston, 1849.) 

1 Our readers may find in the works 'of Bishop Berkeley, and especially in 
his Minute Philosopher , this whole subject canvassed with great force and 
clearness. 



SUPPLEMENTAL TO SECTION TWENTY-SIX. 32$ 

demonstrably true: 1, That to obtain a simple, precise, abstract 
concept of number is impossible ; and 2, That the term, as an ex- 
planatory principle, is of indispensable necessity to human inter- 
course. 

But take another equally common term, the word force} Like 
number, it may be defined as " that which" but the definition 
stops short of conveying any definite abstract concept whatever. 
It is " that ivhich produces motion and other perceptible effects," 
and of course is distinct from those effects, unless we would re- 
gard cause and effect as identical. What, then, is that something y 
as to its own precise idea ? The question is unanswerable, for to 
form any such conception is simply impossible. And yet for how 
many speculations, subtle reasonings, profound arguments, in 
mental, moral, and physical science, is it an explanatory principle, 
or an admitted or necessary first truth ? We have the vis inertia, 
vis mortua, vis viva, vis impressa, impetus, momentum, gravity^ 
reaction, and the like. And then, moreover, what earnest and 
subtle controversies have arisen amongst the really learned about 
the true meaning or definition of these terms, though in no in- 
stance could the controvertist claim to possess a definite or ab- 
stract idea of what he would signify by the term force itself. 
Were these savans, then, acting foolishly, and talking nonsensi- 
cally, as they must have been agreeably to Baur's application of 
his principle ? Or were they acting rationally % And, on the con- 
trary, would not he be acting irrationally who, on such grounds, 
should impute folly to them ? We have, likewise, erudite treatises 
on the Proportion of Forces ; that is, on the proportion of things 
which are wholly indefinable ! A proposition which, according to 
Baur, must be really " unthinkable" until we can form a clear 
concept of what forces really are. And then, still further, we 
have propositions relating to force which are of very great prac- 
tical use ; as, for example, that a body with conjunct forces de- 
scribes the diagonal of a parallelogram in the same time that it 
would the sides with the separate forces. And by considering the 
inexplicable doctrine of force, how many useful inventions in 
mechanics have been suggested? And thus, as an explanatory 
principle, the term is of incalculable use, though in none of its 

1 See in the Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review for January, 
1875, an article touching the use and application of this term. 



330 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

multitudinous usages does the term ever convey a clear abstract 
idea of the thing itself. 

But surely it is needless to dwell further upon a point in the 
•elucidation and establishment of which all science could be ap- 
pealed to. The very basis of Baur's ratiocination is therefore as 
preposterously absurd as he would represent the proposition to be 
that we participated in the first sin, or sinned when Adam sinned ; 
and of course the argument he would erect upon it becomes ridi- 
culous as insisted on by him; and since, moreover, it is simply 
absurd to claim that it is impossible, to assent to the truth of a 
statement or proposition unless we are able to frame in the mind 
definite or even intelligible ideas of all its terms — an allegation 
equally in conflict with science and common sense. 

These things being so, it is too obvious to require proof, that 
since a single term may thus serve as an explanatory principle, 
though it be impossible to form an abstract concept of its mean- 
ing, a statement of fact clearly announced by divine revelation 
may be employed in the same manner and for a like purpose, 
though the fact itself so far transcend our intellection as to be 
even unthinkable; i. e., a fact as to the mode of which we can 
form no abstract conception ; as, for example, the announcement of 
the fact of a tri-personality in the divine unity, and of the two 
natures in the person of Christ, and that all sinned and became 
veritable sinners when Adam sinned, together with a score of 
other averments which, lying clearly beyond the range of our in- 
tellection in the present stage of our being, God has imparted to 
us as facts. All that is needed in order to their intelligent recep- 
tion by us, is to be authoritatively apprized by the Fountain of 
all Truth and Wisdom, who cannot err, that the statement an- 
nounced is a fact, in order fully to warrant our employment and 
application of it in the elucidation of other statements which 
would be otherwise inexplicable. Such an employment of such a 
fact is perfectly legitimate, and in strict accord with scientific 
usage, of which the single illustration may suffice which we have 
in Section YIII. presented in relation to Sir Isaac Newton, and 
his discovery of gravitation. 

And then, in regard to the explanatory principle itself, given 
by the Holy Spirit in the announcement that we all sinned when 
Adam sinned, a volume could be easily occupied in evincing how 



SUPPLEMENTAL TO SECTION TWENTY-SIX. 



331 



immense is its importance in explaining the ground of the divine 
treatment of our race, the evils and disorders of earth, the divine 
interposition on our behalf; and in freeing the divine character 
from all imputation of the authorship of sin. But we cannot here 
dwell upon this subject. 

The Ttpwzov (peddos of the aforesaid false method of treating the 
matter lies in regarding the intellect as the receptive faculty for 
divine truth, to the exclusion of the moral nature. And hence the 
explanatory principles that our blessed Lord possesses in one per- 
son a human and a divine nature, and that in the divine unity 
there is a tri-personality, have met the like reception with the afore- 
said. These truths, while sound reason receives them on the sure 
and certain ground that God can teach nothing false or impossible, 
are pre-eminently adapted to the moral nature, whose inner con- 
sciousness realizes their truthfulness and efficacy; while the mere 
intellect, in its clumsy efforts to seize and subject them to analysis 
or scrutiny, that is, to precise, definite, and abstract conceptions, 
finds them wholly to elude its grasp. It is in this deep and sancti- 
fying and saving sense that these divine mysteries have ever been 
potentially and practically realized in all their saving efficacy by 
multitudes of the poor, the uneducated, and the illiterate of 
Christ's flock, with whom so many of the highest and brightest 
examples of the divine power of religion have appeared ; a subject 
on the general bearing of which Pascal thus remarks : " Those 
whom we see to be Christians without the inspection of the pro- 
phecies and other evidences are found equally good judges of the 
religion itself as others who have this knowledge. They judge by 
the heart as others do by the understanding. God Himself has 
inclined their hearts to believe, and hence they are effectively per- 
suaded." 

The student of ecclesiastical history will not need to be re- 
minded that the word person was introduced into the ancient sym- 
bols and creeds simply as an explanatory principle. It was not 
that, for example, the Nicene fathers professed to have any dis- 
tinct conception whatever of the import of the term in its appli- 
cation to the trifold distinction in the Godhead. They never pre- 
tended to any such absurdity, and their aim was to give expression 
to the disagreement of the Church with the errors of those who 
deny that there is any real distinction in the divine nature, and 



332 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



who affirm the sentiments attributed to Sabellius, that Father, Son,, 
and Spirit are merely the names of the different methods which 
God had adopted to reveal himself to man. In order to discard 
fully and effectually all such notions, they employed the word 
person to evince that, in the view of the Church, the distinction 
was not merely nominal, but real, though inexplicable, and thus it 
has ever been employed by the Church. And it is as unreasonable 
to require of us a clear, abstract definition of the term in this con- 
nection, as it would be to demand of science herself such a defini- 
tion of number and force as a necessary prerequisite to the recep- 
tion of her utterances. 

We find in the divine word that both faith and unbelief are 
predicated of the heart, and not of the intellect alone. And man 
being a moral, not less than an intellectual being, it is as contrary 
to true science as it is to true religion to predicate of this know- 
ledge that it can consist only of precise, abstract intellectual con- 
ceptions. A broad field lies open here for remark and illustration, 
but we cannot now enter it. But of those who assume this posi- 
tion we ask directly, Is it the abstract ideas of force and numher 
that are the foundation of true science % or is it the concrete ideas 
with their adjuncts? Everyone understands the latter, but no 
man has ever comprehended the former. Is it then fatuity, or is 
it intellectual fanaticism, to insist upon precise, abstract, intellec- 
tual conceptions as essential to religious belief, or faith in the un- 
seen and invisible, which have been announced to man by God 
Himself; when true science herself spurns the very notion of 
such a thing as degrading to her position, even in relation to her 
very foundation itself, and to her simplest elements, and when 
both alike require our assent to and belief of that which we are 
wholly unable to explain, and the modus of which we cannot, with- 
out folly, even pretend to comprehend ? But we proceed to our 
next section. 

§ 27. The Issue in Question does not Demand, and neither will 
it Admit of, Solution, on the Principles of any of odr Recog- 
nized Philosophies. 

If philosophy be, as is alleged, the science of causes and prin- 
ciples, it is, of course, obvious that she must possess (if not an 
exact knowledge of, or acquaintance with, the principles themselves) 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE ISSUE. 



333 



the material from which such knowledge may be elicited in rela- 
tion to any and every topic on which she would either form or 
utter a determination; for without this her attempts at the de- 
velopment or explication of either causes or principles will arrive 
.at no result which can prove to be either practically available or 
entitled to serious regard. If true to herself, indeed, she can no 
more consent to assume the preposterous attitude of attempting by 
mere assumption to create her material than would the natural 
sciences themselves. She has been not inappropriately defined to 
be the exercise of the reason to solve the higher problems of 
which the human mind can form a real conception ; or, more hap- 
pily, the investigation of the principles upon which knowledge and 
being rests, so far as those principles are ascertainable. But if she 
would really deserve her name, Philosophy, the domain of her in- 
vestigations must be limited by the never-to-be-forgotten queries : 
How and what do we really hiovj f for beyond the limit thus sug- 
gested she cannot venture, if she would be entitled to serious re- 
gard. Ferrier has somewhere well said : " Philosophy is the attain- 
ment of truth by the way of reason," — a definition which may serve 
to determine, not only her appropriate sphere, but the limitation 
of her domain. . 

We have no intention to plunge into the chaotic ocean of phil- 
osophical metaphysics, but design in this section mainly to follow up 
to the results above suggested the train of thought entered upon in 
•our last. But first and foremost it is proper just here to ask that 
Dr. Hodge explain the ground of his perpetually repeated asser- 
tion, that the doctrine under discussion is absurd and inconsistent 
with common sense. Whose " common sense " does he refer to ? 
for the term is relative, and we are aware that that which is as- 
sumed by those whose theological belief is regulated by their pre- 
dilections (as with the Socinian and Rationalist schools) may be 
pleaded ; but does he refer to that % We, in our previous sections, 
have shown that the doctrine of which he presume's thus to speak 
has been unambiguously and reverentially taught, and defended 
also as eminently rational ; and as the undoubted truth of God, by 
the vast majority of the learned and gifted and godly who have 
been numbered with the Redeemer's followers ever since Augus- 
tine gave to it a full dogmatic or formulated expression, and like- 
wise by the great mass of the Church at large. In what light, 



334: ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

then, may we regard the position assumed by one of our theolo- 
gical teachers, who requires that the Church, on his merest dictum,, 
should admit that the truth thus received and regarded as sacred by 
God's own heritage from the beginning, is such an absurdity, and 
so contrary to common sense that it does not rise to the dignity 
of a contradiction, and has no meaning at all, but is mere Pan- 
theistic nonsense and impossible ? It might be well for him to 
state whose "common sense" he refers to in support of these al- 
legations, for that of the Church must clearly be left out of the 
category. Nor can he produce a particle of alleged proof to war- 
rant the monstrous and offensive utterance, except what these truly 
great and illustrious men have considered and fairly refuted ten 
thousand times. 

That the question, "Whether we so sinned in Adam, by partici- 
pating in his sin as thereb} r to become veritable sinners, neither 
requires nor will admit of solution by the appliances of mere hu- 
man philosophy is obvious, (1), Because the fact itself of our hav- 
ing so sinned is given as an explanatory principle in an inspired 
and direct announcement of pure revelation, and the Holy Spirit 
does not rest the basis for the reception of His disclosures upon 
any such solution ; and (2), Because the nature of the fact disclosed 
lies wholly beyond the domain and even the reach of the appli- 
ances of any human philosophy, as much so as if the question were 
the truth of the hypostatical union itself. To which it may be added, 
that the awkward and abortive attempts of the past fifteen cen- 
turies to render such a solution furnish practical exemplification 
of the truth announced in the heading of this section. And as 
to the fact or doctrine itself, therefore, we receive it, while we ab- 
jure all endeavors at explanation. Dr. Hodge denies the doctrine,, 
but the denial is not based upon any attempted argument, aside 
from a claim (futile, as we shall see) to understand that which is 
in its nature incomprehensible. The Church holds that we all 
sinned in Adam, not only forensically (for his sin is charged against 
us as participants), but virtually and potentially ; that is, in such a 
sense that agreeably to the invariable meaning of aij.ap-a.vziy and 
a/xapTcoXos we became really sinners. We affirm that the Holy 
Spirit, who never teaches absurdities or impossibilities, teaches 
this as plainly as language can give it utterance, while, on the con- 
trary, He never in any way, either by implication or otherwise,, 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE ISSUE. 



335 



does teach the direct imputation of apeccatu?n alienum to the 
unfallen offspring of Adam, all of which, however, is discarded 
by Dr. Hodge (as above stated) as nonsensical and absurd ; and 
this, not upon any authoritative utterance of the inspired w T ord, 
but upon his own a priori assumptions, and thus would, if he w r ere 
able, cede to philosophy a realm which she has no right even to 
enter, much less to occupy ; for she knows nothing on the subject, 
and therefore can utter no valid determination in regard to it. 1 

My great aim in this treatise, as the reader may have observed,, 
is to let the Church hear the utterances of her great and gifted 
sons rather than my own, on the leading topics introduced ; and 
I here cite a few remarks from the late learned and truly eloquent 
Dr. James Gray, who, in referring to attempted philosophical solu- 
tions of the facts which come to us only through pure revelation, 
says: "Satan hates nothing so much as the gospel — the pure, 
simple doctrine of faith — because it is the destruction of his king- 
dom, the wisdom of God for the salvation of men. His policy, 
therefore, as a politician of awful and tremendous powers of cal- 
culation, is to render men dissatisfied with pure gospel truth. "We 
know the devil by his children, for the works of their father they 
will do ; and we know that whenever they are pressed on the sub- 
ject of duty, they demur and demand a reason. It is the grand 
effort of Satan, and of his sons, when a duty is enjoined, to start 
a problem ! and, if possible, an insolvable problem ! and, while 
people are puzzling their brains about the solution, life ebbs away, 
and the sinner dies in his sins." 

"The philosophical question which he has started on the subject 
now before us is this: 'What is the principle of identification be- 

1 The serious inquirer will be gratified with the following passages from 
Vcetius (the great antagonist of Des Cartes and his philosophy), who, referring 
to the efforts of the Socinian schools to explode the sacred mysteries of our 
religion, says: "Ante omnia notari volumus, distinguendum esse inter to or: 
illorum mysteriorum et to dion. Certe to on liquido constat et probatur 
ex sacris Uteris, sed to olotl et to -/.to? [Ionic for ~<5?] (id est, quomodo) mens 
nostra penetrare earn nequeat, nec Deus in hac vita revelare voluerit, utque 
quiescendum est in docta ignorantia et altitudine veritatis occulta?. 0u<s6dva) 7 
inquit Nazianzenus (Orat. IV., De Sancto Baptismo, sub finem), to iy yor t aa'. 
xa>. to:? ~pi<j'. 7zepcXd/x7to/j.ai. Ob cddxv to. rptd dieAeiv, y.ai to ey dyaciooaat. 
Male ergo faciunt adversarii, qui ex tw d./.o-alr—ui too Scotc seu ejus quod 
Deus non revelavit convertuntur in accusationem too on quod Deus revelavit, 
tanquam dou^aTou et axoizou." (Selecta? Disputationes, Tomo I., p. 434.) 



336 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



tween Adam and his posterity in the law of works ? And what is 
the principle of identification between Christ and believers?' 
That the sentence of death falls upon the human family as one 
body corporate in law, and that justification is pronounced upon 
Jesus, and all true believers, as one body corporate in law, is suf- 
ficiently apparent from the Scriptures ; and the problem which has 
been suggested is this, What is the principle of identification ? 

" I have ascribed this philosophical problem to the invention of 
the devil, because it bears the triple brand with which he marks 
all his inventions: 1, If the problem was solved, the solution could 
be applied to no useful purpose whatever. 2, It is incapable of 
being solved. 3, In seeking its solution we are in infinite danger 

of falling into some error and denying some revealed truth 

Solomon certainly exerted his utmost powers of mind to solve this, 
among some other moral problems, and he tells us that ' this only 
had he found, that God made man upright, but they have sought 
out many inventions;' and if he vms modest enough to rest satis- 
fied with a naked fact, without explanation or theory, we may do 
so too : and perhaps those who resemble him most will be the first 
to imitate his discretion. But the great evil of speculating on the 
present subject is this, that perhaps no man has ever attempted to 
pursue his inquiries beyond the mere fact without falling into 
error ; and there is ground to fear that no man ever will attempt 
it without injury to truth. When you get ultra flammantia moz- 
nia mundi* all is conjecture and hypothesis, and there is infinity 
to one that the conjecture and hypothesis will be wrong." 1 

We cite these remarks as expressing truly what the real province 
of mere human philosophy is in relation to the topic before us: 
that is, she cannot, without manifest impropriety, attempt to have 
anything to do with it, the whole question being entirely aside 
from and beyond her sphere. And a very few remarks will serve 
to evince what have been the actual results of her attempting such 
solution in the past. 

As to philosophical Realism and Nominalism, they have made 
no progress towards approximating such solution ; and the problem, 
so far as they are concerned, remains just as it stood when they 
first began, and, during the past centuries 5 prosecuted their stu- 

1 See The Mediatorial Reign of the Son of God, pp. 181-184, by Rev. James 
Gray, D. D. (Baltimore, 1821.) 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE ISSUE. 



337 



pendous efforts in that direction ; and we dismiss them without re- 
mark. Each has, doubtless, a portion of the truth on the subject 
(though neither will admit this in respect to the other) ; and when 
they mutually and seriously concede this, the number of the points 
in antithesis will be so greatly lessened, and the remainder so mo- 
dified, as to justify us in believing that the strife will soon be 
brought to a close ; and this, not by solving the problem, but by 
discovering that it is really insolvable. 

The endeavors to arrive at a solution through the philosophical 
theory of substantial identification of the race with Adam, and of 
believers with Christ, have only evinced that theory to be a mere 
offspring of the imagination ; nor has it, moreover, ever been either 
approved or even countenanced by the Church, nor by a sufficient 
number of the thoughtful within her pale to entitle it to historic 
notice or criticism. But even if the theory were based upon pro- 
bability, and the allegation were susceptible of demonstration that 
in our physical structures we actually possess particles of the body 
of Adam, this could furnish no evidence to prove that his sin 
should be charged to our account. So that, even granting the 
theory thus far, it can have no claim to be brought forward in 
this inquiry. The logical sequence of the assumption is, that as 
the race is only Adam evolved, so the elect are only Christ evolved. 
Its incipience seems to owe its origin to a serious effort of some 
serious mind to give formulated utterance to that profound con- 
viction of the human consciousness that the distinction of person- 
ality or individuality in the race does not conflict with its actual 
unity, and vice versa (on which we shall have a word to offer in 
the sequel) ; but as a theory its full paternity may be directly 
traced to the theological school of Alexandria, by which it was 
brought forth in the abortive attempt to unite Christian theology 
with the Greek philosophy. 

The theory of the moral identity of the race with Adam, as 
presented by Staffer, and to some extent favored by Edwards, is 
likewise a merely philosophical speculation, and can plead no sup- 
port, either direct or by implication, from the Scriptures ; nor has 
it in any way ever been recognized by the Church. This theory, 
moreover, fails equally with the foregoing to furnish any substan- 
tial ground for explaining that which the Church has ever regarded 
as inexplicable. The problem as to the transmission of sin, or the 
22 



338 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



mode of our participation in the first sin, resists all such efforts at 
solution. 

As relates to the philosophical theories of creationism and tra- 
ducianism, they have ever found their utmost extremities of solu- 
tion to fail before the simplest inquiries, often propounded, but 
never receiving an aDswer which, in consistency with the theories 
themselves, could sustain a moment's serious scrutiny. However 
the claims of either may stand related to the actual truth itself, it 
is quite obvious that the whole truth on the subject is not in pos- 
session of either, though there certainly is truth on both sides 
of the great issue ; 1 and though as theories ', they assuredly have 
furnished no proof of having attained to it. Solomon, as above 
remarked, had applied all his powers to the investigation of the 
great problem itself, but acknowledged that he was unable to pro- 
ceed beyond the mere facts of revelation, and that the why, and 
the how, and the wherefore had entirely baffled his scrutiny. " Lo,. 
this only have I found," says he, "that God made man upright; 
and they have sought out many inventions," or, literally, devices. 
Inventions or devices being the antithesis of uprightness, of course 
mean evil devices ; and the reference is to that departure from up- 
rightness, of which all became guilty in the fall. The result of 
his investigations, therefore, is that mankind themselves, and not 
God, are the sole authors of their sin and wretchedness, and that 
this is to he accepted simply as a fact. 

The theory of Dr. Hodge, however, propounds the following 
solution : The inherent depravity and consequent misery of the 
race are the penal consequences of Adam's personal transgression, 
his posterity themselves being without subjective ill-desert until 
that peccatum aliemim had been imputed to them ; and that they 
could not have sinned with our first parents in the first sin, he 
would demonstrate as follows : " Apostasy being an act of self- 
determination, it can be predicated only of persons ; and if the 
apostasy of Adam can be predicated of us, then we existed as per- 
sons thousands of years before we existed at all. If any man says 
that he believes this, then, as we think, he deceives himself, and 
does not understand what he says ;" 2 which is, as our readers have 

1 See on this point page 1116, of Vol. I., of the Selectee Disputationes of 
Veetius. 

2 Princeton Review for 1860, page 357, (more fully cited in our § 5, above) 
See also Dr. Hodge's Theology, Vol. II., pages 216-225. 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE ISSUE. 



339 



seen, only a reproduction of the so-called philosophical specula- 
tions brought usque ad nauseam against the same doctrine by the 
Socinian and Eemonstrant schools. 1 

This, then, is the solution, and it is unquestionably as clear and 
conclusive when levelled against an announcement of divine reve- 
lation as the forecited reasoning of Dr. Morgan is in relation to 
the hypostatical union : " God and a human soul cannot be the 
same intelligent being, agent, or person ; and therefore cannot 
with any truth or consistency be joined together under one com- 
mon name, as if they were the same I, the same he, or the same 
intelligent agent or personal self." Or as that of Dr. Channing 
against the doctrine of the Trinity: -''TTe object to the doctrine 

of the Trinity that it subverts the unity of God Here, 

then, we have three intelligent agents, possessed of different con- 
sciousnesses, different wills, etc It is a difference of pro- 
perties, and acts, and consciousness, which leads us to the belief 
of different intelligent beings, and if these must fail, our whole 
knowledge fails." 

Is this, then, (we ask) a legitimate attainment and determination 
of philosophy in her own proper domain ? and is it a legitimate 
application of principles which she recognizes as her own ap- 
proved dicta i Or, on the contrary, is she not here obtruding her- 
self into a sphere which is not hers? — the sacred sphere of truth 
which has been divinely communicated to the race because un- 
ascertainable by us in any other way — and so stultifying herself 
by uttering a dogmatism upon what may or may not be believed 
of - its announcements \ If the latter, she is self-condemned, and 
entitled to no regard, and these her utterances are to be despised 
as the ambitious mutterings of presumption and ignorance. But 
if the former, then it is obvious that if either utterance is to be 
regarded as valid, there is no possible escape from admitting the 
validity of them all. In each of the two latter instances, the solu- 
tion is just as clear, and the ground upon which it is based just as 
tenable, and consequently, the conclusion just as legitimate as in 
the preceding by Dr. Hodge — the principle on which the solution 
is based being in each instance the same. And hence, therefore, 
while it appears- that we did not really sin in Adam, as the thing 
is impossible (whatever God may in His word allege to the con- 

1 See Sections 19. 20, and 21, above. 



34:0 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



trary), it is equally certain that there cannot be both a human and 
a divine nature in the person of Christ, and that the doctrine of 
the Trinity cannot be received as true except on grounds which 
are subversive of the whole foundation of actual knowledge. So 
that, if philosophy may be admitted to furnish the basis on which 
to determine what revelation may or may not communicate, these 
doctrines cannot be intelligently accepted, but must be discarded 
as absurd. If not, then the principle itself is false and pernicious 
in every instance of its aprjlication where the point involved is, as 
it is in each of these cases, one of pure revelation, and so, of course, 
lying entirely beyond the proper domain of any merely human 
philosophy whatever. 

There would be indeed a contradiction if, for example, we might 
suppose that, in respect to the nature of God, the statement could 
possibly be that He is three in the same sense in which He is one; 
for as this would necessarily bring the announcement within the 
proper range of our conceded knowledge and understanding, the 
belief of it would be as impossible as that of the proposition that 
a circle and a triangle are of one and the same form. But such is 
not the fact. And so, too, in the first of these instances : it would 
be a contradiction if the proposition affirmed that we personally 
sinned anterior to our personal existence ; for this Would bring 
within the limits of our intellection the subject-matter (so to 
speak) of the whole proposition, and, mutatis mutandis, Dr. 
Hodge's ratiocination would be conclusive. Or if the proposition 
affirmed that sin could be predicated only of a state of developed 
personality, and that, notwithstanding we did veritably sin in and 
with Adam, this would be either self-contradictory, and therefore 
incredible and false, or it would necessitate the doctrine of our 
preexistence. But the proposition does not so affirm ; and there- 
fore to attempt to argue as though the statement did involve either 
of these, is to argue invidiously and fallaciously. And yet this is 
the perpetually repeated argument of Dr. Hodge against the doc- 
trine that we really sinned in Adam, as the others are of the Uni- 
tarian school against the doctrine of the Trinity and of the two 
natures in the person of Christ. 

But let us attend to a farther exhibition of Dr. Hodge's philo- 
sophy, accompanied by an assault, in the way of antithesis, upon 
the doctrine he opposes. He says : " When God, by the almighty 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE I68UE. 



341 



power of His Spirit, quickens the spiritually dead, the holiness 
thus originated is none the less holiness. It is not essential to our 
moral character that it should be our own work. The graces of 
the Spirit, although due to the divine energy, constitute the moral 
and religious character of the believer. In like manner the de- 
praved nature which we inherit from Adam constitutes our moral 
character, although it did not originate in any act of our own. . . 
. . . But it is to darken counsel by words without knowledge, and 
even without meaning, to assert that we acted thousands of years 
before we existed. The Bible solution of the difficulty is infinitely 
better than this. Our depraved nature is the penal consequence 
of Adam's sin, not of ours ; just as our holiness is the gracious gift 
for Christ's righteousness, and not something self-originated or 
self-deserved." 1 

Let us then, for the argument's sake, admit Dr. Hodge's philo- 
sophy in this its two-fold application. And we are willing, more- 
over, to concede that which he assumes, to-wit : that if the appli- 
cation be valid in the one case here referred to, it is valid also in 
both. He affirms what is certainly true : that the graces of the 
Spirit in the christian believer are due to the divine energy, and 
constitute his regenerated or religious character, in like manner 
as the depraved nature inherited from our first parents constituted 
our moral character. I ask, then, Do the graces of the Spirit con- 
stitute our religious character anterior to and apart from our own 
self-accepted or ethical appropriation of those graces ? They do 
not, it is true, causally originate with us ; but do they become ours 
irrespective of this self -appropriation? ~Nc ! in no sense of the 
terms. And then as to the originating of holiness, to which the 
former part of the extract adverts, when does that holiness become 
ours ? Surely Dr. Hodge will not allege that it is anterior to our 
appropriation of it, which would be absurd. Nor is it after our 
appropriation, as the Pelagians dream. And yet we are not, and 
cannot be, holy until this actual self -appropriation takes place ; and 
this is coetaneously with the renewing operation of the Holy 
Spirit. Dr. Hodge will scarcely venture to deny our affirmation 
in relation to either of these cases ; that is, in reference both to 
the origin of holiness (that it does not become ours irrespective of 
our appropriation of it), and of the graces of the Spirit (that they 
1 Princeton Review for I860, p. 359. 



342 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



do not become ours apart from the like appropriation). And 
these things being so, the inevitable conclusion from Dr. Hodge's 
own philosophy and logic is, that the guilt of Adam does not he- 
come ours irrespective of the like ethical appropriation. The gifts 
of the Spirit being free and gratuitous, our acceptance and appro- 
priation of them, through His renewing grace, are in no sense of 
the term meritorious any otherwise than the act of a perishing 
beggar in accepting a proffered alms. But our self-appropriation 
of a depraved nature, being a plain departure from God, clothes 
us with depravity and sin, and brings us deservedly under the Di- 
j vine condemnation. So far as the argument is concerned, there 
is not in either case any occasion to claim that the gifts or the 
depravity are self -originated, since in both cases alike they are 
self appropriated before they can become truly ours, which, in 
respect to sin (we having been previously innocent), renders it as 
truly ours as if it were self-originated, and in respect to righteous- 
ness, our appropriation of it, through the infinite grace and mercy 
of God, constitutes it as fully ours as if it were self-originated. 
There is no middle ground between this doctrine and the theory 
that we are not moral agents, and are not responsible in view of 
the overtures to us of eternal life. So that both the logic and the 
argument of Dr. Hodge really confirm the doctrine which he is 
endeavoring to overthrow by his philosophy. 

And then further, and as we have stated above, the Doctor 
cannot here even philosophize, or unfold his theory in its true re- 
lations to this whole subject, without involving himself, even on 
its most vital points, in humiliating and hopeless contradiction. 
In itself considered, however, this is of no great account, and, as 
we must refer to it in another connection, our reference here will 
be brief. Our readers have seen, from the last two of our quota- 
tions from his writings, how imperiously he has denounced and 
attempted to ridicule the doctrine of our having apostatized in 
Adam. And yet in the same volume (p. 765), in his Reply to the 
Rejoinder of Dr. Baird,he claims that the loithdrawal of the Holy 
Spirit from the posterity of A dam (on account of his sin) is simul- 
taneous loith the rise of their moral corruption ; that is, the Holy 
Spirit (which, according to his theory, the posterity could never in 
any way have previously possessed) is withdrawn from them. And 
then again, under the pressure of an opposing argument, he says : 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE ISSUE. 



343 



"If God judicially withhold spiritual life from apostate men, 
they are dead. They come into being in darkness and death. 
"We do not think Dr. Baird has much ground for the charge of 
heresy on this point" (ibid.). Thus affirming that God withholds 
His Spirit from an apostate race before that race could have apos- 
tatized at all (according to his theory), that is, before it came per- 
sonally into being, though he had just been alleging in the most 
proscriptive style that " apostasy being an act of self-determination, 
it can be predicated only of persons; and if the apostasy of Adam 
can be predicated of us, then we existed as persons thousands of 
years before we existed at all." Thus vague and utterly indeter- 
minate are his conceptions of those great fundamental points re- 
specting wmich he is so arrogant and peremptory. 

In order to give color to his attempt to treat the doctrine of our 
participation in the first sin as a merely philosophical question, Dr. 
Hodge, as we have shown, has sought to identify it with philoso- 
phical Realism, and then to assail it under that mask. In all his 
earlier lucubrations this is apparent, and in his Theology the same 
misstatements are reiterated en masse} The whole procedure is, 
however, so unfair and unscholarly, in view especially of our full 
demonstration to the contrary, that it can mislead no candid and 
competent mind. But we shall not stop here to dwell upon it, 
and in concluding the section shall present a brief historical state- 
ment in relation to the connection of the doctrine of participation 
with philosophical speculation in the churches of the Refor- 
mation. 

During the earlier period of the Reformation, the Protestant 
divines, though remarkably clear and accurate in the delineation 
of the doctrine of original sin and justification by faith alone, and 
of the other salient doctrines of Protestantism, made no attempt 
to refine upon the Scripture announcements respecting our union 
with the first and second Adam, or to trace out through the aid 
of philosophy the principle of our possible identification with either, 
or on any such ground to explain the relation which our sin and 
corrupt nature bear to the one, or our righteousness and sanctifi- 
cation to the other ; but simply received and inculcated the whole 
revealed truth on these subjects, without assaying either to estab- 
lish or defend it by philosophical speculation. The Kominalistic 

1 See Vol. II., pp. 190-192, 216, 220-227. 



344 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



principle had been applied in its most offensive form to the doc- 
trine of original sin by Pighius and Catharinus, and asserted even 
to the extent of representing Adam's merely personal sin, through 
a forensic imputation, as causal of the moral corruption and misery 
of the race, and thus carrying forward the previously asserted 
notion of the Arminians, ,and then of Ocham (the founder of 
Nominalism), and others of the scholastics, that original sin is 
" reatus alieni peccati sine aliquo vitio hcerente in nobis" i. e., as 
the ground of its imputation to us. These persons did not deny, 
but on the contrary emphatically affirmed that moral corruption 
was the punishment or penal consequence of the imputation of 
this reatus alieni peccati ; but by original sin they meant peccatum 
originaus simply, that is, the sin which thus, as its procuring 
cause, originated the moral corruption of the race ; and they af- 
firmed that that sin was Adam's personal sin alone, in the sense 
that his posterity did not participate therein, but whose moral 
corruption and misery resulted from it alone as a peccatum alienum. 
This notion, as will appear in the sequel, the Protestant divines to 
a man opposed and rejected; not, however, by verging to the op- 
posite standpoint of philosophical Realism, but by maintaining 
alike that Adam's sin was imputed to his posterity on account of 
their participation therein, and that they were subjectively guilty 
on that account. In other words, they adopted not the Realistic 
philosophy, or rather I should say philosophical Realism, but the 
Realism of Augustine, whose views should never be regarded as 
identical with the speculations of the later schools of Realists. He 
was a Realist in the sense of maintaining that we really and actu- 
ally sinned in Adam, and that his sin was imputed to us as parti- 
cipants; but not in the sense of adopting (as the later Realists did) 
the dicta of a mere human philosophy as sufficient to explain 
either the modus of this our sinning in Adam, or the principle of 
our asserted moral identity with the first and second Adam. 

"When, still later in the progress of the Reformation, Nominal- 
ism had secured a foothold in the Protestant church, a philosophi- 
cal Realism was adopted in antagonism by some, though neither 
side even then ventured upon a departure from the doctrine which 
hitherto the Church had unhesitatingly recognized, that all men 
were in Adeem in such a sense as to constitute the first sin a racial 
sin and them as veritable sinners, by sinning in and falling icith 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE ISSUE. 



345 



him in that transgression ; and both alike perpetually recognize 
and cite the universally approved formula, Primiirn persona in fe- 
cit naturam, sed post natura inficit personam ; for neither side 
could assume the ground previously occupied by Ocham, and still 
later by Pighius and Catharinus in the Council of Trent (the very 
ground now occupied by Dr. Hodge) , without arraying themselves 
in direct antagonism to the protest and disclaimer of the whole 
Protestant church. Nor did they aim in any way, therefore, to 
change or modify the formula itself, but referred to its announce- 
ments as universally conceded facts. The philosophical Realists 
found their principle of identification in an assumed substantial 
identity of Adam and his seed, and the Nominalists in a federal 
relation, which latter idea Cloppenburgh (1652), and finally Coc- 
ceius (1669), elaborated into what has been par eminence named 
the federal system. The former were by this philosophy induced 
to give undue prominence to the natural relation, and the latter 
to the normal ; both, however, still adhering to the aforesaid sheet- 
anchor, that the race became subjectively guilty by participation 
in the criminality of Adam, and was thus brought under the judg- 
ment unto condemnation. And so careful was the latter school not 
to depart from this doctrine that even the framers of the Formula 
Consensus Helvetica (1675) — a symbol which, incredible as it may 
seem, Dr. Hodge has actually claimed repeatedly in support of his 
theory — have, in their offset to the errors of Placseus, given it a 
full expression. As, for example, they say : " We hold, therefore, 
that the sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity by the secret and 
just judgment of God, because the apostle testifies that all sinned 
in Adam : ' by the disobedience of one many were constituted sin- 
ners,' and that ' in him all die.' And neither does the reason ap- 
pear by what means hereditary corruption as spiritual death could 
come upon the whole world, unless some offence of the same human 
race had preceded, bringing the guilt of that death (mortis illius 
reatum), since God, the m ost righ teous judge of the whole earth, can 
punish none but the faulty (nonnisi sontem puriat). In a two-fold 
way, therefore, after sin (or the fall), man, by nature, and thence- 
forth from his origin (or conception), before he had in himself 
committed any actual sin, is exposed to the divine indignation and 
curse ; first, indeed, on account of the transgression and disobe- 
dience which he committed in the loins of Adam,; then on account 



346 



ORIGINAL BEST AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION". 



of the consequent hereditary corruption inherent in his conception, 
by which his whole nature is depraved and spiritually dead ; there- 
fore, indeed, as rightly stated, original sin is two-fold, to-wit : im- 
puted and hereditary inherent." 1 

The writings of the main authors of this formula (Heidegger 
and Turrettin) contain the same announcements, as our readers may 
perceive by consulting the extracts from them in our preceding 
sections. And even De Moor, a century later, cites them as re- 
presenting the orthodox doctrine, and in a very carefully dis- 
criminated distinction drawn by him between the orthodox doctrine 
and that of Placaeus, he expressly says that our theologians every- 
where declare that the comparison instituted by Paul between 
Adam and Christ teaches that Adam was the representative head 
of his whole natural posterity, in whom the whole nature sinning 
the whole race may be accounted to have sinned. So that the 
first sin may be regarded as the sin of us all, in which Adam him- 
self, and we in him, contracted the guilt of death, which guilt was 
transmitted to all his posterity by imputation, according to Rom. 
v. So that whatever evil may redound to or inhere in them, does 
not precede, but follow this guilt which rests upon them, as, on 
the contrary, no spiritual or saving good is conferred upon the 
elect except in view of the merits of the second Adam, which are 
likewise imputed to them. And he adds: that in Adam his 
posterity contracted the guilt of death and the curse through the 
imputed fault (culpa) of his first sin ; that is, it being charged 
upon them as theirs, or as a sin in which they participated. This, 
in brief, is his statement, 2 while from the very first of his entrance 
upon his professorship he had deeply lamented that the doctrine 
of our common guilVin Adam, and consequent corruption was so 
proscribed; i. e., by the Pelagian and Socinian schools, and the 
rationalistic tendencies of the age, thus evincing what his own views 
were. He says: "Utinam nec communis omnium reatus in 
Adamo, cum hujus fundamentis firmissimis, nec secuta hinc cor- 
ruptio nativa, cum hujus sequilis omnibus, ipso etiam Poedo- 
Paptismo, vel proscribantur prorsus, vel per cavillas et extenua- 
tiones varias tandem evanescant." 3 When he was inaugurated, 

1 See Niemeyer's Collectio Confess., p. 733. (Leipsic, 1840.) 

2 Perpet. Comment, in Marck, Tom. III., pp. 264, 265. 

3 See in ibid. Tom. V., p. 622, his Oration at Leyden, May 29, 1719. 



PHILOSOPHY AND THE ISSUE. 



347 



Marck, and F. Fabricius, and Wesselius, and Yan Honert were 
professors in the University, all of whom subscribed the oration 
as expressing their doctrinal views, and all of whom consequently 
held that native corruption flows from the common guilt of all in 
Adam,, and not merely from the imputation of Adam's personal 
guilt. And this was the highest form in which the federal doc- 
trine was recognized by the Church of God, until Dr. Hodge (at 
a period when our grand old theology had well nigh ceased to be 
studied in our Church), by his unparalleled failure to compre- 
hend the meaning of the term imputation as employed by the 
Augustinian divines, has been inculcating as the doctrine of the 
Church the dogma of the gratuitous imputation of sin — a mere 
philosophical figment which can be found in no church synod, nor 
in the writings of any really eminent and approved divine, except 
as referred to by them when refuting and discarding it as a pesti- 
lential heresy. 

And then further. The philosophical Realistic view, which Dr. 
Baird, in his Elohim Revealed, has presented with marked ability, 
has never been considered by the Church herself as a heresy, though 
Dr. Hodge, in his review of that work, and since, has pertinaciously 
insisted on affixing to it the odious brand, denouncing it as a fun- 
damental error, and wholly subversive of the Protestant theology. 
This attempt, however, is entirely sui generis, and has nothing to 
authorize it in the Protestant Church ( which has never so regarded 
it, as the reader may perceive from our previous quotations), while, 
on the contrary, she has always repudiated as fundamentally sub- 
versive of all her principles the theory and exegesis of Dr. Hodge. 
We neither have, nor ever have had, a particle of sympathy with 
Dr. Baird' s attempts at philosophical speculation on the subject ; 
but yet, in every point of view, they are incomparably less objec- 
tionable than the scheme of Dr. Hodge, for this is fundamentally 
at variance with the word of God and the theology of the Church, 
as is testified una voce by the great body of her representative 
divines. 

A similar endeavor, though destitute alike of discrimination and 
fundamental investigation, has been attempted at another of our 
theological seminaries, to render Creationisrn a test of Calvinistic 
soundness, and Traducianism a heresy, though it cannot here be 
expatiated upon. But it is by methods such as these that the 



348 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

manly and liberal spirit of our communion is to be frittered away,, 
so as to be made to square with the narrow conceptions of souls 
adapted to no higher pursuit than that of heresy hunting. A very 
little acquaintance with the theology of the Church would have 
made apparent to such persons that traducianism has ever been 
an open question in our communion, and, in fact, in the Church 
herself, ever since the days of Augustine. 1 But when the fact is 
taken into consideration that this attempt is made from a stand- 
point of actual and fundamental departure from the recognized 
theology of the Church, and that the advocates of errors which 
are balef ully pernicious and gospel-subverting are thus endeavoring 
to convict of heresy others simply because they indulge in a species 
of philosophical speculation, which has always been allowable in the 
Calvinistic communion, the contemplation would be as painful as 
it really is ludicrous if the puerile effort were such as could possi- 
bly enkindle the slightest spark of apprehension. 

§ 28. The Basis for the Imputation of Adam's First Sin, as Af- 
firmed by this Theory, Considered. The Position of Tur- 
rettin. 

The discussion of our theme w T ould be quite incomplete unless 
it included a fair presentation as well as a just consideration of the 
topic announced in the heading of this section, and, moreover, 
without a thorough examination of Dr. Hodge's principle of re- 
presentation so closely associated therewith, and to which we shall 
invite attention in our next section. 

The professor affirms that the imputation of the first sin of 
Adam to his posterity proceeds upon the basis of the relation 
which he sustains to them as their natural and moral head ; at th& 
same time, however, he claims that this relation can in no way so 
connect them with Adam as to render them subjectively guilty of 

1 We cite in illustration a few references : see, for example, the fragments of 
Augustine s letter to Optatus, in Gallandus' edition of the Fathers, Tom. VII., 
pages 587, 588, and compare with Epist. II., § 10, page 585 ; also his En- 
chiridion, Capp. 46 and 47. bee also Zanchius, Tom. IV., pages 48-51, and 
Keckerman Theol., pages 256-258 ; Altingius, Theol. Enclit., pages 332, seq. ; 
Maresius' Exegesis, Confess. Belgic, Art. 15 ; Vcetius, Selectse Disputationes, 
Tom. I., pages 796, and seq., also page 1094 usque ad 1115; or consult 
Hooker's Works, Vol. L, pages 212, seq., and Delitzseh, Biblic. Psychology* 
Part II., § VII. ; also Baird's Elohim Revealed, Chapter XI. 



DR. HODGE AND IMPUTATION. 



349 



that sin ; and hence, as they cannot be partakers of his crime in 
virtue of that relation, they are, on the ground of it, regarded and 
treated as only forensically guilty, and that through a gratuitous 
imputation to them of his peccatum alienum. The Augustinian 
ehurch, on the contrary, has always considered the relation not 
only as essential to the right apprehension of the doctrine of ori- 
ginal sin, but as illustrating and establishing the fact that the first 
sin was common alike to both Adam and his posterity, — a culpa 
participate one. But this essential feature of the doctrine is, as we 
have seen, both denied and denounced by Dr. Hodge as nonsensi- 
cal, so that in his theory the relation does not connect the pos- 
terity morally with the guilt of the first sin, but putatively only, 
and yet is made the basis for connecting them, not with a putative, 
but real and literal condemnation and punishment. Thus this 
covenant relation was established solely through the mere sov- 
ereignty of the divine will, human agency being in no way con- 
cerned with its formation, and then solely by the divine will was 
constituted the aforesaid basis for this imputation and condemna- 
tion ; and the requirements of punitive justice in the matter are, 
consequently, not in virtue of any subjective ill-deserving on the 
part of the posterity, but only as it has pleased the Divine Ruler 
in the exercise of His sovereign pleasure to charge guilt, and then 
to visit it with condemnation and punishment ; and yet in his The- 
ology, and in all his writings on the subject, Dr. Hodge affirms 
that justice, on the ground of the relation itself, demands this im- 
putation, or " judgment unto condemnation ;" and that, this sen- 
tence, together with its inevitable sequence of moral corruption 
and spiritual death, was therefore required on that ground as a 
satisfaction to justice in order to sustain the demands of the law. 
All this seems truly difficult of conciliation, or even of apprehen- 
sion, and is, perhaps, scarcely deserving of criticism. But in 
scanning it closely I have been led to suppose (though I do not re- 
member that he has ever given to the thought an expression) that 
the Doctor's idea might be, that if the whole race could have ex- 
isted personally and simultaneously with Adam, its father, they, 
in consideration of the natural relation subsisting between them, 
would, beyond all peradventure, have willingly consented that he 
should represent them in any covenant arrangement which might 
be divinely appointed, which being, of course, known to the divine 



350 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

mind, it would not be inconsistent with justice and equity to pro- 
ceed upon a basis which the posterity would have cheerfully ac- 
cepted had opportunity allowed. 

This certainly carries an air of plausibility ; and though in the 
absence of his endorsement I would not attribute it to Dr. Hodge, 
yet it has occurred to mind as the only possible ground on which 
he might claim, as he does, that divine justice (that is, provided 
he employs the term with any approximation to its true sense) de- 
manded the punishment of those who were innocent, and who, as 
he constantly affirms, had never in any way incurred a liability to 
its exactions. It may be in place, therefore, to offer here a brief 
criticism touching the question. 

If, then, for the sake of the argument, we should admit the ex- 
planation, it is worthy of inquiry whether such an assent formally 
yielded by the race would not so far have rendered them respon- 
sible for the acts of their progenitor (unless disclaimed by them) 
as to involve them in his guilt should he violate the covenant ? 
Such assent would certainly furnish a basis for the imputation to 
them of his representative acts. Or, would Dr. Hodge maintain 
that even in such a case a gratuitous imputation of his transgres- 
sion would be necessary to constitute them guilty, in virtue of the 
natural relation % Surely not, for this would be too plainly prepos- 
terous. On the contrary, would not that relation itself, in virtue 
of their consent that their father should represent them, constitute 
a moral basis on which to treat them as partakers with him in 
guilt without any gratuitous imputation ? Certainly it would, and 
no imputation could render it more so. The ground for the im- 
putation in such a case, therefore, would not be the mere natural 
relation which the posterity sustained to Adam, but the assent 
which, in virtue of that relation, they had given that he should 
act as their representative, which assent would be, moreover, the 
basis whereon was constituted this moral or federal relation. 

It can hardly be out of place, in treating the topic, to adduce an 
illustration from the so-called Scientia Media, and I shall pursue 
it a little farther. 

Could, therefore, the posterity of Adam all have been person- 
ally alive at the time, then, their assent to his appointment as 
their representative, and their consequent incurrence of respon- 
sibility for his acts, would have been necessary in order so to con- 



PR. HODGE A>T IMPt"TAll X. 



351 



stitnte thein partakers of his guilt as to justify their participation 
with him in its punishment. Dr. Hodge must either admit this, 
or accept one of the following dilemmas, neither of which he will 
acknowledge, to-wit: That in such a case God could, irrespective 
of their choice or wihingness. nave justly constituted them, not 
only putatively. hut morally responsible for the acts of their 
father, or that the natural relation alone would siiuice to -justify 
the imputation. 1 If. then, in such a case, their own assent would 



i necessarv in order to constitute tnem sinners 



nartakers of his criminality, the only reason why it is not now 
necessary must be -'if this hypothesis be recognized' . that God, 
knowing that they would have given their assent, treats them ac- 
corcmgly : tnat is. as tnougn tney nad given it ipso Tact and 
really. The case being so. therefore it follows that their consent, 
had tnev tnen personally existed, womd nave rendered tnem par- 
takers of Adam's guilt, and so have justified their condemnation as 
participants therein. And inasmuch as God now treats them in 
accordance with what He knows they would have dene, so He now 
treats them as guilty : not on the ground of a gratuitous imputa- 
tion, but on the ground that they would have been really crim- 
inal had they personally existed when Adam fell. And the con- 
clusion would iojIow tnat tnev actually are treated tuns because 
their subjective guilt was foreseen, and on account of that fore- 
seen subjective guilt. Should then the foregoing conception be 

the natural and federal relation without regard to participation { 
The whole would be evaporated by the mere attempt to subject 

I do not id luce this illustration because I have any sympathy 
with the view which Seller. Hern, and others hive advanced, that 
it would be legitimate for God to treat His creatures at the c:m- 
mencement of their existence in accordance with His knowledge of 
what tnev will oecome in tne course oi it; for it tnis eomi be 
justly done it is plain that He could even then consign them to 
perdition whim He foresaw would, if their probation continued, 

1 In Section 4 above, we have shown that Dr. Hodge, by the steps of his 
own argument, has been really driven to assume this ground, but we here 
refer t: a deliberate ass::rzr rim cf it. 



352 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



reject the overtures of salvation, which would be in effect to treat 
them as if they really had possessed and abused that very proba- 
tion which He had denied to them. 1 But to return. 

Now, in precisely the same sense in which Dr. Hodge alleges 
that we could not sin and fall in our first parents except putatively 
we could not of course acquiesce except putatively in their ap- 
pointment as a federal head ; so that in no sense of the word were 
we participants in the covenant transaction except putatively, 
though we all really fell through its violation, and suffered the 
real, and not merely putative, consequences of that. violation ; for 
no one will pretend that those consequences come under the cate- 
gory of the putative or fictitious. Now, as we were not person- 
ally partakers in the covenant transaction, on what principle can 
the federal relation be made (as Dr. Hodge affirms that it is 2 ) the 
ground for bringing upon us " the judgment unto condemnation" 
for a personal sin of Adam ? God Himself established the rela- 
tion between Adam and his offspring, they being no more con- 
cerned therewith, according to Dr. Hodge, than they were in par- 
ticipating in his sin. God, according to this theory, by a mere act 
of His sovereignty, established it, and then, by virtue of this His 
own act (they being subjectively free of all guilt and criminality), 
He imputes to them the personal sin of Adam, with all its baleful 
consequences. Thus Dr. Hodge bases the whole of this fearful 
procedure upon the mere will and pleasure of God, and all his re- 
marks about the natural and federal relation amounts only to this : 
That without any reference to the subjective character or agency of 
the creature, God first prepared a basis ujjon which to treat him 
as a transgressor, and then treated him as such upon the basis thus 
provided. Such is the ground for the imputation of sin presented 
l3y this theory. So that not the moral nature of God, but His 

1 The following passage from Zanchius is in point here, though the sen- 
timent therein cited from Augustine is perhaps too strongly expressed, as 
may appear by comparing it with Gen. xviii. 17-19 ; 2 Chron. vi. 7-9, and 
other statements of the word of God : " Pelagiani dicebant infantes preedesti- 
natos ad vitam, propter opera bona quae fecissent, si vixissent. Haec nempe 
preevisa a Deo. Sed Augustines, 1 Nemo vel punitur, vel prcemium accipit pro 
Us, vel bonis, vel malis operibus, quae nunquam egit, sed acturus eratJ De 
Prcealest. cap. 12." Zanchius, De natura Dei, lib. V., cap. 2; Quaest. III., 
p. 530. 

2 See Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 187, and Review for 1860, p. 340, 368. 



DR. HODGE AND IMPUTATION. 353 

will, originates and directs the whole procedure, and justice, as 
such, has no more concern in this condemnation of the creature 
than it had with providing the basis upon which he is condemned. 
In our former essay we called Dr. Hodge's attention to this point, 
but in his Theology, and doubtless for satisfactory reasons, he 
deemed it inexpedient to undertake its examination. But we 
must now consider the subject of this section from a more practi- 
cal point of view, and one which bears more directly upon the 
Doctor's rejection and denunciation of the doctrine of participa- 
tion. 

It is not only admitted, but repeatedly and emphatically affirmed, 
by Dr. Hodge "that the race of man participates in the evil con- 
sequences of the fall of our first parents" 1 and that they partici- 
pate therein from the very beginning of their existence. Why, 
then, so peremptorily refuse to allow with the Church herself that 
they participate also in his subjective ill-desert, " the procuring 
cause of all these evils " ? Let us glance at this a moment in the 
light of the Doctor's affirmations. He alleges of the race that 
they are " born in sin ; that they come into the world the children 
of wrath;" 2 are " born in a state of guilt and pollution;" 3 that 
"guilt attaches to the innate corruptions of nature ;" 4 that "ha- 
bitual or indwelling sin is not voluntary in the sense of being 
designed or intended, or in the sense of being under the power of 
the will ;" 5 that " the existence of sin in the heart, the presence of 
evil dispositions, without regard to their origin, is unavoidably at- 
tended with a sense of pollution and guilt ; " 6 " that guilt, in the 
comprehensive sense of the word, and pollution, enter into the nature 
of sin, or are inseparable from it, is not only revealed in our own 
consciousness, but is everywhere assumed in the Scripture;" 7 
and that "men universally, under the circumstances of their be- 
ing in this world, are sinful, and exposed to innumerable evils. 
Many of these, and that in many instances the most appalling, 
come upon the children of men in early infancy anterior to any 
possible transgression of their own." 8 

In view of this impressive delineation of our actual state by 
nature, the inquiry, which at this point of the argument mainly 

1 Theology, Vol. II., p. 192. 2 Ibid. p. 191. 3 Ibid. p. 191. 
4 Ibid. p. 190. 5 Ibid. p. 190, 6 Ibid. pp. 189, 190, 
7 Ibid. p. 189. s Ibid. pp. 195, 196. 
23 



354 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



concerns us, is, Whence do these fearf ul evils proceed f — for we 
are not at liberty here to lose sight of the fact that though the So- 
cinians and Remonstrants do not specifically enumerate moral pol- 
lution anterior to our birth amongst these evils, as Dr. Hodge does, 
they yet concur with him that all the evils of, or incident to, our 
fallen state (whatever may be the names we bestow upon them) 
originate from the sovereign will of God on account of the per- 
sonal sin of Adam ; while he admits that the moral pollution 
which is ours anterior to and at our birth does not originate in or 
through any agency of our own. Herein, therefore, is a substan- 
tial agreement. Paul, however, and the Augustinian church have 
always averred, as we have abundantly shown in our previous sec- 
tions, that these evils come upon the race because we all sinned 
by participating with our first parents in the first sin. Dr. Hodge 
alleges that we did not and could not really sin in the first sin, and 
that these evils are the penalty, not of our own sin, but of a pec- 
cat um alienum — the personal sin of Adam ; and that because of 
this his personal sin God brought upon an innocent race, as the 
punishment of that sin, all these terrible calamities ; for, according 
to his theory, they come upon us for a sin of which we. are as 
guiltless as the unfallen angels themselves. And hence they can 
be penal to us in no proper sense of the term, but only so far as 
unavoidable evils, which we have not by any agency or action of 
our own brought upon ourselves, might be thus designated ; that 
is, in other words, they are calamities, and calamities alone. And 
therefore to name them the exactions of retributive justice or 
penal inflictions, in connection with an avowal of the principles 
of this theory, is, as it seems to us, not merely to trifle with the 
meaning of the terms, but preposterous in a high degree. Such^ 
then, is his doctrine as to the ground for the gratuitous imputation 
of sin ; and herein consists the for ever irreconcilable and funda- 
mental difference between the doctrine of original sin as he has 
taught it and that doctrine as* entertained and taught by the 
Church, which affirms our guilty complicity or participation in 
the first sin as the penally-procuring cause of all the evils we 
endure. 

But, passing all this, we return to the question that since Dr. 
Hodge affirms that these tremendous evils have come upon the 
race, and that they are penal, why not include in our participation 



DR. HODGE AND IMPUTATION. 



8^5 



of such, baleful effects of our first parents' transgression a partici- 
pation likewise with them in their guilt as the ground ,of this its 
imputation \ — the avowed doctrine of the Church ever since its 
formulation by Augustine. And why not frankly employ the 
language of the Reformation on the subject, and say with Beza, 
for example, who, when speaking on the same point, says : "Adam 
sinned knowing and understanding what he did ; but his infant 
posterity from the moment of their birth are truly guilty of sin, 
but of that only by which they sinned as contained in Adam, 
whence their allotment is that they are born corrupt and guilty." 1 
Why could not Dr. Hodge thus speak (for thus the Church has 
always spoken), and not base this great fact of our native deprav- 
ity on the figment of the gratuitous imputation of a foreign sin ? 
Paul also (and in the plain and literal sense of his words, as we 
have seen) teaches such participation as a historical fact. And 
though Dr. Hodge, against all recognized authority and against 
the 11ms loquendi of the Scripture itself, would attach a figurative 
sense to the terms, why should he, against the united testimony of 
the Church, regard an exegesis so hostile and yet so unsupported, 
and persist in refusing to admit this criminal participation [culpa 
participatione) into the category of baleful evils which we and 
our first parents have brought upon us by the first sin ? What is 
the principle which lies at the basis of this pertinacious refusal ? — 
illustrated, as it is, not only by a simple rejection of the doctrine 
referred to, but by his sarcasm, and denunciation of those who do 
receive it. 

Can it be, then, that the reason for this course is his inability 
to comprehend how the posterity of Adam should have partici- 
pated with him in the fall % But would this be a sufficient reason, 
or a criterion for faith? If so, what becomes of the personal 
union of the two natures in' Christ % and of the doctrine of the 
Trinity ? not to speak of the many other facts of revelation 
wherein he affirms his belief, and yet is obliged to confess his ina- 
bility to comprehend them \ If he insists that the one should be 
rejected because undefinable, in the present fragmentary state of 
human knowledge, a rejection of the others must, of course, follow 
on the same ground. And then, further, the Holy Spirit has no- 
where given in support of either the Trinity or hypostatical union 

1 Annotations in Nov. Test, (on Rom. v. 14, p. 37, col. l),'anno 1589. 



356 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



a plainer or more direct announcement than He lias of the doctrine 
in question, both in the Old Testament (Eccles. vii. 29), and in 
the New (Rom. v. 12-19). And moreover, as we have already 
stated, the great body of the most learned, able, and godly men in 
the Church have always believed and taught the doctrine, without 
pretending to be able either to explain or comprehend it ; and Dr. 
Hodge can allege nothing as a ground on which it ought to be dis- 
claimed and rejected, or to justify his unmeasured but foolish de- 
nunciation of it, which was not as fully and as thoroughly known 
to those eminent and holy men as it could possibly be to himself. 1 
For what reason, therefore, should he so persistently refuse to 
admit that, since the race participated in all the forementioned 
evils of the fall, it may not likewise, in some one of the ways 
wherein he has affirmed that guilt, and even sin, may exist in us 
without reference to our voluntary agency, have even participated 
in the sin and guilt of the fall itself % What should hinder this, 
even on the ground which he professes to occupy? And why, 
then, with such foolish imperiousness, reject it as the real basis 
for the imputation, seeing the doctrine itself is an essential article 
of that theology which he has been employed to teach ? Augus- 
tine, as we have stated, received and taught it ; and not only so, 
but it has been reverentially received as God's own truth by the 
great body of the learned and good who have accepted and de- 
fended the gospel and its doctrines since his day. Can then, the 
ground on which Dr. Hodge refuses to include a participation of 
guilt in the category of those evils, whatever may be the ground 
he pleads, be, in any sense, regarded as sufficient to warrant his 
denunciation of those who do thus include it as acting irrationally 
and nonsensically ? and as substituting the whole scheme of salva- 
tion itself? For he frequently does thus accuse and denounce 

1 It is true that the fact that one or even many persons have accepted a 
principle or doctrine is not to be regarded as a criterion for others, or as a 
sufficient reason wh}^ they should follow the example. Such a jDrocedure 
would degrade the moral and intellectual nature given us by our Creator. 
Nor is this the point presented in the text. But when a man undertakes to 
denounce and ridicule a principle which has been reverentially received as a 
sacred truth by multitudes who are at the least his equals in learning and 
intelligence, and is unable to render a solitary reason for so doing which was 
not as fully known to them as to himself, it is always in place to remind such 
,a person of the nature of the position which he has assumed. 



DR. HODGE AND IMPUTATION. 



357 



them ; and during his long-continued professorship has been in- 
structing his pupils to reject tl\e doctrine, though previous to his 
appointment it had always been entertained by the Church. A 
few of the facts sustaining this representation have been brought 
before the reader. The contemplation of them in such a connec- 
tion is indeed painful ; but an interest incomparably higher and 
more momentous than anything earthly demands that without 
further hesitation the Church have the opportunity to lay them 
to heart. 

Instead, however, of expatiating further on this point it will be 
proper to attend to an explanation proffered by Dr. Hodge, 
whereby he would, if possible, relieve his position as to the gen- 
eral issue itself. Referring to the doctrine of original sin as held 
by the Reformers, he says : " They therefore made original sin in its 
wide sense to include two sins, original sin imputed, and original 
sin inherent. The latter they regarded as the penal consequence 
of the former." 1 This remark is accurate if restricted to the later 
divines of the Reformation, and if by imputed sin is to be under- 
stood not a merely putative or forensic guilt — a meaning they 
never attached to the phrase — but what they themselves under- 
stood by it, to- wit: The first sin as participated in by both Adam 
and his posterity, and therefore charged upon them as participants. 
But the Doctor immediately proceeds to represent this first sin as 
the sin of Adam alone, and so places upon their language a mean- 
ing which, for any one to represent them as intending to convey, 
they would have charged as an unmitigated calumny. He con- 
tinues thus : " On the ground of the personal sin of Adam as the 
representative of the race, God withholds from men His favor. 
.... This depravity being truly and properly of the nature of 
sin subjects those infected with it to the penalty of sinT 

Thus the whole statement and argument of Dr. Hodge defin- 
ing the basis for the imputation of sin, so far as it claims to be in 

• 1 See Princeton Review for 1860, p. 342. The remark, however, is inac- 
curate so far as the confessions of those churches are concerned. For, as we 
have shown (in the Southern Presbyterian Review for April, 1875, page 813), 
those confessions draw no line of demarcation between original sin imputed 
and original sin inherent; nor has the terminology of immediate and ante- 
cedent imputation any expression in our theology anterior to the latter part of 
the seventeenth century. Later divines did, however, treat the subject as 
Dr. Hodge has suggested. 



358 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



accord with Calvinistic theology, rests upon a sheer and most 
astonishing misapprehension of some of the plainest expressions of 
that theology ; for the Eeformers invariably teach that original 
sin imputed is our own sin in Adam, as well as his personal sin, 
both being imputed as a common sin to condemnation. And in 
making their language on this subject apply to Adam's sin alone, 
he presents them as teaching a doctrine which they not only rejected 
and refuted, but literally abhorred (as being the distinguishing 
tenet of Pighius and Catharinus, and of the Socinian and Re- 
monstrant schools in their assault upon original sin), to- wit: that 
the posterity of Adam are condemned and punished for his per- 
sonal sin alone, and. irrespective of any subjective ill-desert in 
themselves. 

The old divines all speak of corruption, depravity, etc., as the 
punishment of "the first sin," of "Adam's sin," of "the fall," etc., 
but never as the punishment of a peccatum alienum, or Adam's 
personal sin alone. By this punishment they mean that these and 
all the other evils and calamities of this life come upon us in con- 
sequence of our violation of law, and are therefore penal, and not 
merely the natural results, or mere consequences of what some 
other person or persons had done. They regard them as the 
penalty of our sin in and fall with our first parents, just as our 
standards represent them to be. And none of these divines ever 
say what Dr. Hodge always says, that sin was imputed to Adam's 
natural posterity solely on account of their natural and federal 
union with Adam, and irrespective of their participation in his 
sin and fall. This is his basis for imputation, but it is not theirs. 
They maintain that the union referred to evinces our participation 
in his sin, and that we are accounted and treated as sinners be- 
cause we sinned when he sinned, participated in his sin, or sinned 
and fell with him in his first transgression. And they moreover 
directly taught, as Chamier, for example, has expressed it, that 
sinning in Adam is a very different thing from being made sinners 
by Adam ; i. <?., by a forensic imputation to us of his personal 
transgression as maintained by the Socinians ; a statement which 
Turrettin also cites as expressing the Calvinistic doctrine. 1 But 
Dr. Hodge's theory not only confuses, but totally obliterates this 
distinction, and lie affirms that these things are not different, but 

1 See Instit. Theol., loco IX., Qua±st. 9, § 44. 



DR. HODGE AND IMPUTATION. 



359 



one and the same in Calvinistic theology, 1 and yet claims to hold 
and teach the very doctrine of original sin which these eminent 
divines taught and defended. They could not maintain the doc- 
trine of divine justice and deny this principle, and hence their 
constant affirmation of it in every form as we have shown from 
their writings. But Dr. Hodge claims to hold the church doc- 
trine of divine justice, and yet denies and even denounces this their 
fundamental position touching the point. 

It is true that, especially in his late work, he has repeatedly de- 
clared that, in virtue of the relation, natural and federal, of Adam 
to the race, his sin is the common sin of the race ; but in so doing he 
employs the language of Calvinistic theology in a sense peculiar to 
himself and to its avowed antagonists, and to convey an idea which 
it never conveys in this connexion as employed by the Church 
and her leading divines. He adopts it, therefore, as actually em- 
ployed by her opposers in their rejection of her received doctrine ; 
that is, to convey the idea that the personal sin of Adam became 
common by being imputed to his posterity, and was not imputed 
because in was common ; 2 but the Church uses the terms to convey 
the doctrine that the first sin vjas common alike to Adam and his 
posterity, and ivas therefore imputed as a sin common to both him 
and them. Imputed, because it w^as common; and thus in her 
theology, the basis which is assigned as the ground for the impu- 
tation leaves the divine justice unassailable, while on Dr. Hodge's 
theory it stands hopelessly impeached. She places her declaration 
of the fact upon the divine averment, and, without attempting to 
philosophize in order to explain it, believes the announcement, and 
refers, as she should do, to Him to make clear, and to justify that 
which He has communicated as an explanatory principle. 

As the eminent theologian, Turrettin, has been peremptorily 
claimed by Dr. Hodge in support of his theory in regard to the basis 
for the imputation of the first sin, and as we, in our former essay, 

1 See for example his Theology, Vol. II., pp. 202-281. 

2 See in § 21, No. 1, under the heading of Gurcellceus , an instance of this in 
which the Arminian, in reply to Maresius' affirmation that the first sin was 
a common sin, says : "It was not common except through that imputation 
about which ive are disputing,''' and ridicules him for making " that commun- 
ity of sin which in the order of nature follows imputation the ground of the 
imputation itself." This is ipsissima verba the doctrine inculcated by Dr. 
Hodge. 



360 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



were, through reliance on the inaccurate statements of the Doctor, 
led unintentionally to do him injustice, we shall, in concluding the 
section, ask attention for a moment to a correction of the error. 

Turrettin, to some extent at least, adopts what is technically 
called the federal view, but decidedly repudiates both the exegesis 
which Dr. Hodge has attempted of Rom. v. 12-19, and likewise 
his theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin. The antecedent 
imputation for which Turrettin contended was placed by him dis- 
tinctly upon an objective and moral basis; as, for example, when 
in approximating a specific discussion of the subject, he, in pass- 
ing, remarks that " it cannot be said of original sin that it pre- 
cedes (antecedit) all use of the will and of liberty, and that al- 
though it is in the will subjectively, it is yet not from it originally." 1 
And then on the following page, and in disputing against the 
theory of Placseus, he asserts the imputation of the peccatwn, 
habituale, and adds : " They with whom we here contend either 
deny absolutely imputation or concede only that which is mediate 
(i. e., of the peccatum hahituale), but we, with the orthodox, af- 
firm both, and that imputation is to be granted, and that it is im- 
mediate and antecedent." In other words, we, with the orthodox, 
affirm both the mediate and immediate imputation * against those 
opposers who affirm but one ; and we, moreover, affirm that there 
is an imputation antecedent and immediate which Placseus and 
his followers have so pointedly denied. Such is the obvious sense 
of the passage. 

He moreover affirms the natural and federal relation to be the 
ground of a participated criminality or ill-desert. After remark- 
ing that they who deny the imputation of sin are, by the same 
course of argument, led to deny the imputation of the righteous- 
ness of Christ, as with the Pelagians, Socinians and Arminians> 
he adds (and as the passage is very important we give it in his 
own words): "Nec obstat quod imputatio justithe Christi sit ex 
gratia, imputatio vero peccati ex justitia, possit antem gratia tri- 
buere alteri id quod ei non debetur justitia non possit, quia gratia 
dat beneficium immerenti, justitia pcenam non irrogat nisi merenti. 
Nam in imputatione peccati A dee, justitia Dei non irrogat poenam 
immerenti, sed merenti, si non merito proprio et personali, at par- 
ticipato et cornmuni, quod funditur in communione naturali et 

1 Instit. Theol. ; loco IX., Qua3st. I, § 4, p. 437. 



DR. HODGE AND IMPUTATION. 



361 



foederali quce nobis cum Adamo inter cecl.it} Thus he affirms, as 
strongly as language can express it, that while grace may bestow 
upon one that to which he has no claim, justice cannot inflict punish- 
ment except upon him who deserves it; for in the imputation of 
Adam's sin God does not inflict retribution upon the innocent or 
undeserving, but upon him who does deserve it, which is an utter 
denial of the gratuitous imputation of sin. And in direct antago- 
nism to Dr. Hodge, he does not base the imputation upon the natu- 
ral and federal headship, but bases upon that headship the partici- 
pated and common guilt which constitutes subjective ill-desert, and 
on which ill-desert the imputation or judgment unto condemnation 
proceeds, which is universally the received doctrine of the Calvin- 
istic church. 

Turrettin, then, in illustrating his views, adverts to the tithing 
of Levi by Melcbisedek through Abraham (Heb. vh. 9), and on 
which he thus reasons : " Ita multo magis censeri possunt in Adamo 
peccasse ejus posteri, utpote qui in eo essent ut rami in radiee, 
massa in primitiis, et membra in capite. Xon quod f imdamentum 
imputationis in illo facto qua^retur, quod in multis diftert ab ea : 
sed tantum ut a simili per analogiam illustretur. ec verba quse 
addit apostolus, wo Froc rem tropicam et figuratarn innuunt, 

qua si Levi figurate tantum non proprie, in Abrahamo diceretm* 
decimatus quod est contra mentem apostoli," etc., (§ 25). Dr. 
Hodge affirms this to be Idealistic doctrine (and if so, Turrettin 
was a Healisf) : for adverting to the views of Augustine, he says 
that sometimes "he seems to adopt the Idealistic doctrine that all 
men were in Adam, and that his sin was their sin, being an act of 
generic humanity. As Levi was i?i the loins of Abraham and 
teas tithed in him. so we were in the loins of Adam and sinned in 
him."" 2 Then again says Turrettin: "In the propagation of sin 
the accidens does not pass from subject to subject, because the im- 
mediate subject of sin is not the person, but human nature vitiated 
by actual transgression of the jjei'son, which being communicated 
to posterity this inherent corruption is also communicated in it ; 
as, therefore, in Adam the person has infected the nature, so in 
his posterity the nature infects the person. Ut ergo in Adamo per- 
sona infecit naturam; ita in posteris natura infieit personam? 

1 Loco IX.. Qua?st. IX. . Section 24. - See his Theology. Vol. II.. page 163, 
3 Loco IX.. Qosest. X. ; Section 22. 



362 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

And we now ask the reader, Can any thing be in more direct an- 
tagonism to the scheme of Dr. Hodge than this whole represen- 
tation % We have not room for other citations, but would refer 
our readers to Locus IX., Qusest. IX., §§ 28, 30, 33, &c. 

§ 29. The Representative Principle as Asserted by Dr. Hodge. 

It might be on several accounts timely to furnish in this imme- 
diate connection a thorough discussion of both personal and repre- 
sentative responsibility as illustrating the representative principle 
in general, but our limits forbid the attempt. And the aim of our 
present section wiH therefore be to ascertain what is the principle 
itself as asserted by Dr. Hodge, and to develope the application 
he makes of it in his endeavor to support the theory of the gra- 
tuitous imputation of sin, and in this way we shall be able to 
compare it with the principle as entertained and taught by the 
Augustinian church. Important as it is, and necessarily must be 
to his whole theological theory, we cannot recollect that he has 
any where presented it in a formal definition, and we shall aim to 
arrive at a just conception of his actual view by tracing out his 
use and application of the principle itself, and by his attempted 
discriminations in regard to it. 

It is strange, indeed, that any serious mind who understands the 
meaning of the terms should question the existence of social or 
representative responsibility while professing to allow the existence 
of that which is strictly personal ; for jurisprudence, ethics, and the 
word of God alike all teach that we are placed under this twofold 
responsibility, 1 while speculation in every age has been greatly en- 
gaged in efforts to ascertain the limits of each, and in so attempt- 
ing has not unfrequently merged the personal into the represen- 
tative, and vice versa, the representative into the personal. And, 
indeed, it might be said that herein lies the nucleus of the great 
discussion between Augustine and his Pelagian antagonists ; and of 
that between the Reformers and Remonstrants ; and of that be- 
tween Placseus and the Synod of Charenton ; as likewise that of 
the existing discussion respecting the gratuitous imputation of sin. 
Not that we would intimate that the propositions litigated by the 
contending parties in these discussions were the same, or even uni- 



1 See Dr. Gray's Mediatorial Reign, Chapter VI. 



DR. HODGE AND REPRESENTATION. 



363 



form, but that the debates in the main grew out of the different 
conceptions entertained on the subject to which we refer. 

1. In illustration of the design of this section we remark, first, 
that Dr. Hodge so ascribes the representative character to Adam 
alone as to exclude or ignore Eve logically and ethically in rela- 
tion to the transmission of original sin. 

Eve, in her connection with the fall, and so far as concerns the 
transmission of inherent corruption to her posterity, is clearly 
brought forward in the theology of the "Reformation as sustaining 
a most important relation, but in this regard is practically ignored 
by Dr. Hodge throughout his theological system. This could not 
have been unintentional, since his theory makes the guilt of the 
fall to descend to the race, not through generation, but by a for- 
ensic imputation alone, according to his adopted canon : neque per 
corpus, neque jier animam seel per culpam ; i. e., imputationem, 
as he explains it. Whether this has induced such a total ignoring 
of Eve, our readers must decide for themselves. The facts are 
these : In presenting a statement of the fall, the Doctor very pro- 
perly cites the Confession of Faith, Chapter VI., and also the ac- 
count presented iu Genesis third ; but in speaking of the covenant, 
which is generally supposed to have been made " with our first 
parents and their seed " as the second covenant was made with the 
second Adam, and his seed, 1 Eve is entirely ignored, and Adam 
alone declared to be the representative from whom our guilt is de- 
rived ; 2 and in treating upon the imputation of the first sin he 
makes it be Adam's personal guilt alone, and never lapses into the 
use of those expressions so familiar to our theologians ; e.g., "The 
sin of Adam and Eve," " the sin of our first parents/' etc. ; but 
throughout his work it is the guilt or sin of Adam alone; 3 and 
whether designed or not, the effect is to ignore the universally re- 
ceived doctrine of the Reformed church,, that origin cd sin is de- 
rived to us through generation. Note, for example, the statement 
in Turrettin, loco IX., Qiuest. 12, §§ 1-5. 

Bellarmin, with whose views on imputation as expressed in De 
Amissione Gratice et Statu Peccati (lib. Y., cap. 17), Dr. Hodge 
appears to concur, 4 attempts the same thing, and in lib. IY. cap. 3, 

J Larger Catechism, Question 31. 

2 Theology, Vol. II., pp. 121, 196, 197, seq. 

3 Ibid., and especially page 225. 

4 See Princeton Essays, First Series, pages 181, 193. 



364: 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of that work, says: " Non ab Eva, sed a solo Adamo peccatum- 
originate trahi" (original sin is not to be derived from Eve, but 
from Adam alone) ; a statement at once and decidedly discarded 
by the Reformed church as unauthorized and contrary to the truth. 
Maresius, for instance, takes it severely to task, and in his Expo- 
sition of the Belgic Confession^ remarks, that " Since both parents 
concur actively for the production of offspring, it is inevitable that 
they must likewise concur for the propagation of sin, ad peccati 
propagationem. . . . Bellarmin is deservedly censurable for making 
his general assertion as though no evil is derived to us from Eve, 
and therefore from our mothers ; for as to what the Scripture 
mentions of one man and of Adam in whom all sinned and died 
(Rom. v. 12 ; 1 Cor. xv. 22), it does not exclude, but rather in- 
cludes, Eve, because she is to be reckoned in her husband as her 
head, .... and because husband and wife are one in the propa- 
gation of offspring. But far more perilous is that which Bellar- 
min in the same place affirms, that 6 we were in Adam as in prin- 
cipio activo, not in Eve, since the mother furnishes non virtutem 
activam sed materiam tantum ad prolem generandam? " This 
last particular, however, perilous as it is both to ethics and the- 
ology, is but a fair logical sequence from the former. 

The aim of Bellarmin was to rid the doctrine of original sin of 
the "incumbrance" (so annoying to the mere nominalist) of the 
transmission of sin by generation. The imputed guilt, of Adam's 
first sin, says he, may be thus transmitted, but not moral corrup- 
tion, since moral corruption is the effect or consequence of the im- 
putation of that guilt. And if he could thus make it appear that 
we derive from Adam alone what we suffer through the fall, — that 
is, that the evils of life come upon us through his personal sin 
alone, — there would be no difficulty in the way of showing that 
original sin must, according to the aforesaid canon of Dr. Hodge, 
descend neither by the body nor the soul, but through a forensic 
imputation alone. But Eve, though represented by Adam as the 
proper head, was not confounded with him, as Dr. Hodge's theory 
' logically represents her to be. 

She sinned in her own person, and likewise participated with 
him in his offence, and was punished for that sin. And the self 
same punishment denounced against her for her sin (Gen. iii. 16,) 

1 Exegesis Confess. Belgic., Art, XV., §§ 12, 13, p. 228. (Groningas, 1652.} 



DR. HODGE AND EVE. 



365 



descends to, and is inherited by, her daughters. God reckoned 
with her for her sin ; charged it upon her (and all this though she 
was included in Adam as her federal head) ; and does not in any 
way refer to Adam's personal sin as the ground for this punish- 
ment. In fact, she was dealt with first, being, as the apostle re- 
marks, "first in the transgression." 1 The theory of Dr. Hodge 
equally merges the sin and responsibility of the others whom 
Adam represented (that is, his posterity) in that of their father, 
But the same apostle assures us that they sinned as well as he, 
and are punished for their sin. But no theologian can thus ignore 
Eve in the matter of the fall, and of the transmission of original 
sin, without setting aside our standards, as well as our representa- 
tive divines. 2 

So far as my recollection serves, Dr. Hodge, in his Theology, 
admits nothing in support of the doctrine that sin is transmitted 
by generation ; but the eminent and approved theologians of the 
Calvinistic church, in treating upon original sin, fail not to bring 
the fact into prominence fully and frequently. 

Thus, therefore, the representative principle, as understood and 
inculcated by Dr. Hodge, has no more concern with the con- 
currence or voluntary acquiescence of Eve in the covenant, or in the 
fall (though Adam was her representative), than it has with the 
voluntary concurrence of their posterity. Such acquiescence of 
the represented in any form is not an element which enters into 
the constitution of covenant representation, according to this con- 
ception, and hence the consequence must logically follow, that con- 
currence on the part of the represented in such transaction is not 
essential in order to render them responsible for the acts of the 
representative. And thus the concept of undisputed right or 
prerogative, which is conceded by all to the sovereign will and 
pleasure of God as the only Lawgiver, together with the recipro- 
cal obligation of undisputed obedience on the part of the creature 
arising out of this right of rule or dominion, becomes in effect 

1 See an interesting discussion of this point in Opera. Anton. Walled, Tom. 
I., pp. 216, 217. (Lugduni Batavorum, 1643.) 

2 See, for example, Confession of Faith, Chap. VI., §§ 2-5 ; Turrettin ubi 
supra ; Keeker man' s Theologia, page 253 ; Synopsis Purioris Theologian, 
page 147, § 40 ; Ursinus' Explicaiio Gatechismi Heidelberg ensis, Qua^st. 7. 
And likewise the repeated allusions to the doctrine occurring in the citations 
in Part II. of this work. 



366 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



transferred to and confounded with that of His entrance through 
condescension upon a covenant transaction, thus constituting them 
identical, or a mere distinction without a difference, and this too 
at the very point where the terms of designation themselves have 
been carefully and discriminatingly chosen with the view of mak- 
ing apparent the existence of an appreciable and practical dif- 
ference between them. But we cannot here discuss the topic. 
The principle, however, which is embodied, so to speak, in this 
conclusion has been repeatedly affirmed by Dr. Hodge, even in 
the extracts on our preceding pages ; and reasoning therefrom it 
is not difficult to determine what are the views he entertains in 
relation to the main point in question. 

2. Our second illustration is derived from the fact that the re- 
presentative principle, as affirmed and applied by Dr. Hodge, 
logically attributes the origin of sin in Adam?s posterity to the 
divine efficiency. 

Should the presentation of this thesis be regarded as a deviation 
from the strict line of our discussion, our readers will please bear 
in mind that our design therein is merely to follow out briefly the 
foregoing argument by the inquiry, lohether, on such principles 
of racial representation, it is within the range of possibility to avoid 
charging upon our blessed and holy Creator the authorship of the 
sinful state existing in the posterity of Adam f For if not, then 
that principle of representation, and the theory erected thereon, 
cannot be regarded otherwise than as false and pernicious. In- 
stead, however, of treating the question abstractly, we shall briefly 
consider the facts as presented by Dr. Hodge himself. 

In discoursing upon the doctrine of sin the Doctor, as already 
suggested, remarks that, " according to the Bible and the dictates 
of conscience, there is a sinfulness as well as sins ; there is such a 
thing as character as distinguished from the transient acts by 
which it is revealed— that is, a sinful state — abiding, inherent, im- 
manent forms of evil, which are truly and properly of the nature 
of sin. All sin, therefore, is not an agency, activity, or act ; it 
may be, and is, also a condition or state of the mind. This dis- 
tinction between habitual and actual sin has been recognized and 
admitted in the Church from the beginning." 1 

All this is certainly true ; and it was just this " sinful state " 
1 See his Theology, Vol. II., pages 187-192. 



DR. HODGE AND DIVINE EFFICACY. 



367 



which, agreeably to the teaching of the Church, existed in Adam 
previous to his formal act of violating the precept in Gen. ii. 17, 
and which also induced that violation. The perpetration of the 
act did not of course produce his sinful state ; but the reverse is 
the fact — this state of sinfulness induced both Eve and himself to 
the act. So also in regard to his offspring. A forensic imputa- 
tion of the formal act could not of itself produce this state in them, 1 
unless along with the imputation of the act the sinful state itself 
should have been imparted ; for to make the forensic imputation 
of apeccatum alienum produce a moral status, which status alone 
could have produced the sinful act itself, would be a truly marvel- 
lous conception, whether viewed from an ethical or philosophical 
standpoint, and a complete reversion of natural order ; and then, 
moreover, neither in legal nor political jurisprudence is the act of a 
representative ever charged upon his constituents in order to pro- 
duce within them an approval of that act, and if charged, it is be- 
cause they are regarded as having already approved it. In political 
representation, it is true, that some may be made to suffer the conse- 
quences of an act of the representative without having either 
chosen him to act for them or approved of his act itself ; but his 
act is never charged as constituting them guilty without such par- 
ticipation. It simply imputes to them by a sentence of condem- 
nation or disapproval the guilt which was already theirs ; any con- 
demnation or suffering aside from this is to them merely an unin- 
curred and unavoidable calamity. 

The Church herself has always viewed this matter as it is here 
stated ; and when she teaches that the imputation of the first sin 
antecedes that sinful state of the posterity which becomes manifest 
on the attainment of full personality, it is not a juridical or for- 
ensic imputation of the mere act of Adam that she means, but 
also the charging upon them of a real participation in the sinful 
state which produced that act ; a state in which the whole offspring, 
with their parents, participated, and whish, together with the act 
of disobedience which it produced, was charged upon or imputed to 
Adam, and to Eve, and to all. Such is the Augustinian doctrine, 
which teaches likewise that this corruption is transmitted by ordi- 
nary generation. But let us contemplate a little further the state- 
ment of Dr. Hodge. 

1 See Danville Review for 1862, pages 566, 567. - 



•368 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Whence then, according to his theory, did that sinful state ori- 
ginate which confessedly exists in all the posterity of Adam \ The 
merely putative charge or forensic imputation of the act, or even 
of the sinful state which induced the act (were such a thing con- 
ceivable, they being subjectively free of any guilt or corruption), 
never of itself could have originated the sinful state within them. 
Nor is it of the slightest importance to the argument here whether 
the sinful state be named positive or privative, so long as it is con- 
ceded to be " an estate of sin and misery." Whence, then, did it 
originate 1 Adam, had he even so desired, could never, without 
their concurrence, have inflicted such a condition upon his seed, 
and neither could the devil. It must have had an efficient cause ; 
but Adam, as Dr. Hodge affirms, was not that cause ; and he, 
moreover, affirms most directly that they themselves never causally 
produced it, and that it is found existing in them anterior, not only 
to all intellectual and moral action, but anterior also to all capa- 
bility for such action. Neither Adam, therefore, nor the devil, 
nor the posterity themselves, could have originated it in such 
circumstances ; and yet it exists, and is fearfully and tremen- 
dously operative, and of course must have had a procuring cause 
to which its origin is traceable. On the theory of Dr. Hodge, 
therefore, there is and there can he but one solution of the inquiry : 
Its origin or efficient production is traceable to the divine efficiency 
alone ! If this be a legitimate conclusion, as it certainly seems to 
be, nothing more is needed to demonstrate that this theory should 
be at once and for ever discarded by all who profess the Christian 
name, and that it is wholly out of sympathy with, and directly 
antagonistic to, the expressed teaching of the word of God and the 
recognized theology of the Church. To retain such a conception 
is to retain, under the mask of honoring Him, a standing calumny 
upon His great and all-glorious name and character. But we must 
again advert to this aspect of the theory, and therefore pass it for 
the present. 

3. Our third, and last point is the persistent endeavor of Dr. 
Hodge to identify his principle of representation with the recog- 
nized theology of the Church. We select this as the concluding 
illustration of the general thesis of the present section, as in this, 
his endeavor, the real character of his principle of representation 
is brought to view more fully than in his other discussions. 



THE THEORY AND THE REFORMERS. 369 

Iii order to prepare the way to represent his theory at large 
as identical with the approved theology of the Church, Dr. Hodge 
makes and reiterates broadly the assertion that the Reformers 
^oon found that they could not hold in its integrity the doctrine 
of the gratuitous justification of the sinner by the imputation of 
the righteousness of Christ, until they had adopted the doctrine of 
the gratuitous condemnation of the offspring of Adam on account 
of his merely personal sin, or peccatum alienum ; 1 and thus they 
are held forth as ex necessitate ret adopting the dogma of the gra- 
tuitous imputation of sin ; which remarkable information is thus 
eommunicated in order that all may be made to understand the 
importance of the dogma which was so indispensable to the right 
V adjustment of the doctrine of justification by faith alone, as well 
as the obligation we are under to accept the dogma itself, and 
what it affirms in respect to representation, as the accredited doc- 
trine of the Calvinistic church. 

Such a statement — and one relating, as this does, to a doctrine 
fundamental to our theology (justification by faith alone) — should 
never have been ventured upon except in view of a clearly specified 
historic basis of conceded authority, or a citation of indisputable 
facts to sustain it, neither of which does Dr. Hodge in any way 
attempt to furnish. It is in full harmony with the unceasing 
efforts of Papists, and others of the enemies of the doctrines of 
grace, to bring into disrepute the theology of the Reformation as 
partizan, or as imperfectly developed ; and it is, to say the least, 
most humiliating to find such a recognition of those efforts ema- 
nating from a theological school of our own, and no less painful 
to characterize it as the facts in the case and the importance of the 
subject imperatively require. This asseveration of Dr. Hodge is 
not true, let him explain it as he may. It is purely a fiction of 
his own imagination, not only having nothing of fact to sustain it, 
but with all the facts establishing the direct contrary. The exi- 
gencies of his theory have led him in this, as in a hundred other 
instances, into the strangest and most unaccountable misconcep- 
tions and perversions of our theology, which are both inexcusable 
and incapable even of extenuation. Let but the intelligent reader 
ask himself, Can it be that Luther (for instance), who, after 

1 See Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 174-177, and Princeton Review for 
1860, pp. 339-341, 368-374, 763, 764. 
24 



3T0 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



thoroughly considering it, had so utterly condemned this gra- 
tuitous imputation scheme now advocated by Dr. Hodge (when 
Erasmus had endeavored to revive it), declaring that, though it 
was nattering to reason, its principles were full of impiety and 
blasphemy, 1 and whose affirmation that the doctrine of justifica- 
tion by faith alone is the articulus stantis vel cadentis ecclesice, has 
become a household word to the Church, and whose views on the 
subject never varied, could not hold that glorious doctrine in its 
integrity without so essentially changing his ground as to return 
to and adopt the flagrant error which he thus, and in the last few 
months of his life, disclaims and explodes? And that Calvin also> 
who had adverted to, and in the strongest manner condemned, the 
same error when asserted by Pighius and Catharinus (whose ad- 
vocacy of it in the Council of Trent in his day had made it fa- 
miliar to the Protestant world), could not hold the doctrine of 
justification "in its integrity" without thus essentially changing 
his ground (which he never varied), and acquiescing in the error 
he had condemned ? And that Bucer, Whittaker, Ursinus, Pareus 
and Gomar, and so on down to the illustrious Turrettin, and the 
myriads who in their day and since have taught and defended it > 
without even dreaming of any necessity for Dr. Hodge's theory, 
or exegesis, or principle of representation, did -not or could not 
hold that doctrine " in its integrity ?" and that the ground they 
occupied so successfully and with such irresistible might against 
Papists, Pelagians and others, bad to be varied or departed from 
in order that this truth might be maintained in its integrity ? 
Such an allegation is unspeakably unjust and ungrateful, not only 
to that noble portion of God's sacramental host, but to the Church 
herself, which they were His chief agents in establishing, and for 
whose welfare they prayed and suffered and toiled unceasingly, 
until the great Shepherd received them to His celestial fold. 

It is nevertheless true, indeed, as the remark itself evinces, that 
Dr. Hodge himself has found it needful to depart from their doc- 
trine on this great subject in order to maintain his theory of im- 
putation ; for he could not peruse their writings and fail to discern 
that they not only entertained no such dogma as the gratuitous 
imputation of sin and the so-called principle of representation 

1 " Abblandiuntur hsec rationi, sed sunt plena impietatis et blaspkemias." 
(Comment, on Genesis ii. 17.) 



THE THEORY" AND THE REFORMERS. 



371 



therein involved, but that they regarded and denounced that whole 
theory as a pestilential heresy, and totally subversive of the evan- 
gelical system of grace. But nevertheless, as though it were really 
an admitted fact, he speaks of the inconsistency and confusion of 
the Protestant theology during the sixteenth century, and of the 
"one-sided views" which were therein presented. 1 And he does 
this, moreover, in the very face of those transcend entry important 
admissions of the advanced or later criticism, which condemns the 
assertion as unfounded and unscholarly. Winer, for instance, 
whose sound judgment and discretion as an interpreter of the 
Scripture usus loquendi no true scholar will think of impeaching, 
has, with Tholuck, Hengstenberg, Lange, SchafT, . Delitzsch, and 
their eminent and truly erudite co-laborers, affirmed that " the 
controversies among interpreters have ordinarily led hack to the 
admission that the old Protestant views of the meaning of the 
sacred text are the correct views." 2 The remark has reference 
to the fundamental doctrines of the Protestant theology, as incul- 
cated by the old theologians who achieved the Reformation, and 
as distinguished from the antagonistic doctrines of the Papal and 
Socinian schools; and amongst the doctrines thus developed and 
supported by the Protestants, and assailed by their antagonists, 
the doctrine of justification by faith alone was that which pre- 
eminently developed the Reformation. And it is of this doctrine 
mainly, and as formulated by Luther and Calvin and their com- 
peers, that Dr. Hodge is speaking in the forecited remarks. Let 
there, then, be no evading of the issue herein involved. Dr. Hodge 
should be required either to make good his allegations by reference 
to fact (which he never can do), or promptly to retract them. It 
is not necessary to claim on behalf of the theology of the early 
Reformers that it is uniformly and on all points systematically 

, 1 See, for example, the Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 338, 339. 

2 Cited by Tholuck (in his Lectures, in Bibliotheca Sacra for 1844) from the 
Leips. Literatur Zeitung, No. 44. Schaff also (in his Principle of Protestant- 
ism, pp. 134, 135), after presenting very strongly the same thought, adds: 
<l The scientific study of language itself, by its own inward development, and 
without any regard to Christianity, has led to the immensely important result 
that the Church (orthodox Protestantism in particular) has understood the 
Bible in substance correctly, and must be allowed, therefore, to have all right 
against Rationalism at the bar of science, if only the assumption of the divine 
inspiration of the Scriptures be securely established." 



372 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



precise and scientifically complete. As regards topics of minor 
interest we rind occasionally almost as great a variety of stand- 
points as our theologians now assume, and on them they differed 
as orthodox divines differ still. They unite, however, in attribut- 
ing to the creature, and not to God, the origination of sin or moral 
evil, and in rejecting the dogma of the gratuitous imputation of 
sin. And in regard to the creature's responsibility for the exist- 
ence of moral evil, and as to the doctrines of justification, regener- 
ation, and sanctification, the duty of the sinner to accept at once 
(sine hossitatione, asUrsinus expresses it) the overtures of salvation 
through the gospel, — or, in other words, the whole system of the 
doctrines of grace, — their views were in uniform consistency with 
the teaching of the word of God, as much so, at least, as the views 
of evangelical divines are now or ever have been ; and it is inex- 
pressibly improper and out of place for any reputed Calvinist to 
disparage their presentation of the great system of divine truth. 

It is well worthy of note in the connection, as indicating the 
hand of God's watchful providence in guarding the interests of 
His blood-purchased flock, that simultaneously with the publica- 
tion of the forecited and unbecoming article of Dr. Hodge dis- 
paraging the theology and founders of the Reformation, Principal 
Cunningham, of Edinburgh, issued in the Foreign Evangelical Re- 
view (for April, 1860) his admirable article on the Leaders of the 
Reformation^: from which our readers will doubtless be gratified 
to peruse the following extracts, and to compare them witii the 
forecited deliverances of Dr. Hoclge : " The highest honor," says 
Principal Cunningham, " of the Reformers, or rather the principal 
gift which God gave them, viewed as public teachers who have 
exerted an influence upon the state of religious opinion and prac- 
tice in the world, was that, in point of fact, they did derive from 
the word of God the truths or true doctrines which are there set 
forth, and that they brought them out, and expounded and en- 
forced them in such a way as led, through God's blessing, to their 
being extensively received and applied. Christian theology, in 
some of its most important articles, had for a long period been 
grossly corrupted in the church of Rome, which then compre- 
hended the largest portion of Christendom. The Lord was pleased 

1 Subsequently republished as Essay I. in the volume of his works entitled 
The Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation. 



THE THEORY AXD THE REFORMERS. 



through the instrumentality of the Reformers to expose these cor- 
ruptions, to bring out prominently before the world the true doc- 
trines of His "word The Lord did this by His Spirit at the 

era of the Reformation, and he employed in doing it the instru- 
mentality of the Reformers. He guided them not only to the 
adoption of the right method, the use of the appropriate means 
for detecting error and discovering divine truth, but, what was of 
primary and paramount importance, He guided them to a right 
judgment — that is, right in the main and with respect to all fun- 
damental points — as to what particular doctrines were true or false 
according to the standard of His written word " (p. 6). "And we 
think it 'can be proved, not only that this theology was sound and 
scriptural as compared with what had previously prevailed in the 
church of Rome, but that the deviations which Protestants since 
then have made from it have been in the main retrogressions from 

truth to error The Reformers, with respect to all points in 

which they were substantially of one mind, may be regarded as 
being upon the whole entitled to more respect and deference than 
any other body of men who could be specified or marked out at 
any period in the history of the Church" (p. 7). 

Dr. Cunningham then (on" p. 9) administers to Dr. Tulloch the 
following rebuke for advancing sentiments touching this matter 
which are strikingly similar to those of Dr. Hodge. He says: 
"Dr. Tulloch, we fear,' has come to a different conclusion upon 
this important question, and has plainly enough given the world 
to understand that, in his judgment, the theology of the Refor- 
mation, though a creditable and useful thing in the sixteenth cen- 
tury, and a great improvement on the state of matters in the 
church of Rome, has now become antiquated and obsolete, and 
quite unsuitable to tjie enlightenment which characterizes this 
age.'' And on page 18 he adds: "A combination seems to exist 
at present for the purpose of undermining and exploding the the- 
ology of the Reformation, without meeting it fairly and openly 
in the field of argument." 

There are few things in this whole discussion the contemplation 
of which has been a source of deeper mortification than the efforts 
of Dr. Hodge to disparage, and so to lessen or neutralize, the esteem 
which the Church so justly entertains for the noble and incom- 
parable theology of the purest ages of the Reformation, and thus 



374 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



to encourage and even justify the ambitious efforts of those illiter- 
ate and half -learned sciolists in our own and other communions, 
who, in their abortive efforts to impress the public with an exalted 
sense of their theological attainments, profess to have advanced 
beyond the earlier and still recognized theology of the Church, 
without in any way endeavoring to ascertain, except through in- 
competent second hands, what that theology really is. 1 We would 
commend to such a careful perusal of the " Conclusion " of Presi- 
dent Edward's Reply to Dr. John Taylor on Original Sin. But it 
is indeed an inexpressibly saddening thought that Dr. Hodge should 
have permitted himself to inculcate upon a large portion of the 
ministry of our Church and of its missionaries such sentiments in 
regard to that theology. If his own theory could not be sustained 
except by the disparagement of so precious a legacy, he might 
well have concluded it to be utterly unworthy of the regard or 
confidence of the Church. And well am I persuaded that few, if 
any, of our divines who are thoroughly conversant with the rich and 
precious treasures bequeathed us by the great and good men refer- 
red to, can entertain the. slightest sympathy vvitli such a procedure. 

This persistent endeavor, therefore, to hew out through the 
cherished doctrines of the Church an avenue for introducing the 
gratuitous imputation of sin, with its principle of so-called cove- 
nant representation, into that sacred enclosure, cannot be admitted 
or recognized. The venerable Dr. C. C. Cuyler, in his opening 
sermon before the Synod of York (Pa.), in October, 1835, has 
well observed that "the creeds of the Reformers do not need re- 
vising, and if they did, the men are probably not living to whom 
the task could be committed with safety." And as regards all the 
great and distinguishing features of their work there is ground 
for the suggestion, not that we would speal^ slightingly of either 
the profound erudition or ability of the noble body of the truly 
learned in this and in other lands, whose attainments and whose 

1 This state of things, to a considerable extent, may be traced to the hu- 
miliating fact that the theology- of the Reformation is, at the present time, 
rarely studied by our graduates of Princeton and Allegheny Seminaries, and 
of course but little alarm has been awakened by Dr. Hodge's treatment of 
imputation and original sin, or even by his adoption, in so flagrant a manner 
as he has done, the Socinian exegesis of Rom. v. 12-19. In fact, it would not 
be desirable that that theology should be studied, if his statements on original 
sin are to be accepted as true. 



THE THEORY AND THE REFORMERS. 



375 



zeal for Christ and His truth now adorn His Church in its various 
"branches, but the labor of formulating those doctrinal symbols was 
assigned by Him to the Reformers themselves as their special duty ; 
and to them He therefore imparted those spiritual gifts which 
were pre-eminently required for its needed performance ; nor can 
the higher form of life which, since their day, the Church, with 
all its drawbacks, has been steadily approximating, be realized in 
antagonisms to and reversions, of those teachings ; but only in a 
fuller development of their true spirit and life-giving energy in 
leading the Church herself still nearer to God. 

This train of reflection may be appropriately brought to a close 
by the following elegant tribute from the pen of Dr. Gray, to 
whom we have already referred : " It is now too late to call in 
question whether the glorious Reformation, in which God said, 
Let there be light, and there was light ; and intellect burst her 
chains ; and religion poured her light : and science burst forth 
into birth : and tyranny shrunk back ; and the spirit of liberty 
waved her flag and cried. To arms, my sous, to arms ! — when 
Europe was regenerated to become the regenerator of the world. 
It is too late to inquire whether this was the work of God ! Can 
I believe that the Melancthons, and the Luthers, and the Morells, 
.and the Calvins, and. the Jewells, and the Owens, and twenty 
others whom I could name, and a thousand of others of whom I 
have never heard, did not ■understand the gospel ? In reading 
their works I have often paused, and palpitated, and asked, AVhat 
has become of this race of noble blood ? AYere they all monks ? 
Have they no sons at all ? In this age scarcely can be found a 
man who holds a lamp that can show us how to step over a gutter; 
those held lamps that shed light over half a world. How were 
they so great ? Surely God 'poured on them His Spirit in no or- 
dinary measure ; surely they studied the holy word ; surely they 
prayed for the spirit of illumination when they studied. I find 
them expressing for each other a manly esteem, and I see them in- 
terchanging side-long glances of love, in a way that lovers only 
can see ; but I have not found a single puff at each other in all I 
have read of them. Indeed, they were made of too weighty metal 
to be puffed up by the breath of mortal man. And am I to he 
told that these men did not understand the gospel I do 
not say that they were always right. God left so much human 



376 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



frailty in them to warn us to depend not on them, but on His own 
Spirit and word. 1 In some instances I think them wrong, and 
then with timid step I take a different way. But never have I 
told, and never shall I tell the public, that I learned the way to 
truth by my father's errors. No, ye heroes, if ever I name your 
names save for praise, may my own name rot" 2 

What, then, must be the nature of that conception of Protes- 
tant theology which could allow itself even to suppose that Calvin 
(and along with him his co-laborers in the Reformation), repudiated 
" a principle which is fundamental to the Protestant theology, and 
to the evangelical system in the form in which it is presented in 
the Bible," 3 when he taught so directly and emphatically against 
Pighius and Catharinus that " we are condemned for the sin of 
Adam [that is, "the judgment unto condemnation" passes upon 
us], not by imputation alone, as 'if the punishment of a foreign 
sin were exacted of us, hut vje bear its punishment because we also 
are guilty of the sin so far as our nature vitiated in him is bound 
under the guilt of iniquity before God" 4 ' This, as we have 
abundantly shown, is the doctrine of the Reformation ; and it is in 
direct denial of Dr. Hodge's whole theory of representation and 
of the gratuitous imputation of sin, Calvin affirming that our con- 
demnation for Adam's sin is not through the imputation alone of 
that sin, as though God exacted of us the punishment of a foreign 
sin, or peccatum alienum, while Dr. Hodge affirms that it is alone 
for a peccatum alienum — " the one sin of the one man." Calvin 
affirming that its ground was also our subjective guilt, we being 
guilty of the sin ; and Dr. Hodge affirming that to admit any de- 
gree whatever of subjective ill-desert on the part of the posterity 
as the ground for the imputation, must vitiate the doctrine of 
justification by the imputed righteousness of Christ. And then, 
moreover, in instances without number he affirms likewise that 
" spiritual death was the penal and therefore certain condemna- 

1 " Their doctrine I believe to be always right ; when they chanced to slip 
in a bit of philosophy, a system, it was wrong." 

2 The Fiend of the Reformation Detected, pp. 90, 91,\)ited in Dr. E. S. 
Ely's Theological Review for 1818, pp. 202, 203. (Philadelphia.) 

3 See Princeton Review for 1860, page 341. 

4 Commentary on .Romans v. 17. See Dr, Hodge's misconception of this 
passage in Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 174, 175. 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



377 



tion for the sin of Adam" 1 — "all are condemned for the sin of the 
one." 2 Such, therefore, are the results of those efforts to identify 
this theory with the theology of the Augustinian church. 

To conclude, Dr. Hodge's concept of coveDant representation 
will necessarily come up for specific notice and consideration in 
our next section, in relation to the covenant itself, and therefore 
need not now be further dwelt upon. And it is sufficient here to 
remark that his theory compels him to regard that so-called re- 
presentation as simply coercive, and so to confound it with mere 
law as to abolish the obvious distinction between the two, and 
really to incorporate therewith the notion of both Catharinus and 
Crellius ; thus rendering the whole so-named covenant transaction 
a merely arbitrary or sovereign determination of the divine mind 
to constitute the trial of Adam the trial of the race, without regard 
to the posterity as a party therein. But this, as we shall see pre- 
sently, neither is nor ever has been the recognized doctrine of the- 
Calvinistic or Augustinian church. 

§ 30. The Theory and the Church Dogmatic 
The theological positions of the Reformed or Calvinistic church 
which, to a considerable extent, have been elicited in our preced- 
ing sections we have now considered, so far as relates to their as- 
sumed identity with the more salient features and claims of Dr. 
Hodge's theory. But before concluding the discussion, it will be 
proper to lay before our readers that theory in the direct dogmatic 
contrast which it assumes to the doctrinal and ethical teachings of 
the Church. In the present section we shall treat the subject 
mainly in its historic aspect, and in the following or concluding 
section shall show what are its logical relations to our ethics and 
practical theology ; or, in other words, the revolution which its 
adoption must necessarily effectuate therein. 

Augustine taught that the cause or origin of Adam's sin is not 
to be looked for out of himself. He was free, and freely sinned. 
This with Augustine is a primary fact, and it is never lost sight 
of or set aside by the advocacy of principles through which it 
may, by logical implication, be either subverted or enervated. His 
second primary fact in relation to the matter is that this sin of 
Adam was participated in by his descendants, and in such a sense 

1 See Theology, Yol. II., page 538. 2 Ibid., Yol. I., page 27. 



;378 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



as to involve their spontaneity or ethical appropriation of its 
culpability or guilt ; so that, in the trangression which he in actu 
perpetrated, they likewise sinned, and so sinned as to incur de- 
servedly the judgment unto condemnation which came upon all; 
and that thus all the consequences which finally overtook Adam 
extended also to them, — and extended, let it be observed, not for r 
or on account of his sin considered as a peccatum alienum (as 
Pelagius named it, but which name was promptly disclaimed by 
Augustine), but because they participated with Adam therein. 
The fact of their participation and consequent guilt he every- 
where affirms. The ?node of that participation he nowhere at- 
tempts to explain (as the philosophical Realists have since essayed 
to do), further than to allege that the first sin was not a peccatujn 
alienum to the posterity of Adam, and consequently could not 
become subjectively theirs by any forensic or gratuitous imputa- 
tion. Their participation was real, and their guilt was real and 
not fictitious, or merely putative; i. e., it was not produced by 
forensic imputation of a sin which their own ethical appropriation 
had not so constituted theirs as to render them subjectively guilty. 
And therefore the imputation or condemnatory judgment was as 
justly inflicted upon them as upon himself. These, though not 
exactly his words, are his sentiments, on which light is cast by his 
well-known remark (already cited), peccatum " antiquum, quo nihil 
est ad pxeclicandum notius, nihil ad intelligendum secretius." 

Thus, from first to last, was our subjective guilt not only clearly 
affirmed by Augustine, and the justice and holiness of God in the 
.matter carefully guarded from implication, but the true repre- 
sentative principle as subsequently taught by the churches of the 
Reformation carefully preserved, though not formally defined or 
formulated. His doctrine as fairly presented is, that Adam stood 
personally not for himself alone, but also for his posterity.' His 
act was not their act, but the guilt of acquiescing therein was a 
common guilt; as in the case of a political representative now, 
who, acting from the known wish of nis Constituents, perpetrates 
an act of treason. The act is not theirs, but the guilt is by par- 
ticipation. So in the case of Adam and his race. His sin was 
not imputed to or charged upon them as & peccatum .alienum to 
^constitute them guilty, but as a peccatum commune, of which they 
with him were already guilty. Their sin was not that of formal 



THE THEORY AND CHUECH DOGMATIC. 



379 



perpetration, but of participation through acquiescence or con- 
currence. But this whole subject-matter of representation and 
participation in the Adamic sin, as taught in our theology, cannot 
be fully understood or appreciated unless viewed in connection 
with the doctrine of the covenant as entertained by the Augustinian 
church — a point to which we shall invite attention presently. 

Such, then, was the Augustinian doctrine of representation, and 
such the form in which it was subsequently presented by our 
Church. Cocceius, as already stated, engrafted upon it the con- 
ception of a formal contract 1 between God and our first parents. 
But the transaction is not to be viewed as a bargain or contract, 
but simply in the light of an agreement ; that is, God in His in- 
finite condescension freely and voluntarily appointed that the race, 
by means of a specific test, limited in its duration, should be en- 
abled to secure, beyond fall or forfeit, fnll confirmation in holi- 
ness (instead of having probation run coeval with existence ) — a 
test, moreover, which all moral agents must render before they 
can be accepted or approved as obedient. Hence it has been 
named the covenant of works, as made with our first parents while 
in a state of integrity, and therein differs from the Sinaitic dis- 
pensation, which relates to the race in their fallen condition. It 
consisted, therefore, simply of a deed of promised blessings, with the 
particular mode or terms of their conveyance, and of course an 
acquiescence in these proffers of infinite condescension and good- 
ness on the part of those to whom* they are made. The difference 
between such an arrangement or appointment, and a mere legal 
enactment is sufficiently obvious. But on the part of Cocceius 
and his followers the conception became so elaborated as in a 
great degree to exclude from the covenant the human element or 
agency, as relating to the posterity themselves, and to give undue 
prominence to the conception of the whole as merely a legal en- 
actment, requiring that the race should undergo probation in Adam 
alone; though, in expression at least, they distinctly retained the 
principle of spontaneity and appropriation in relation to original 
sin. And the doctrine of immediate and antecedent imputation, 

1 See a masterly discussion of the scheme of Cocceius in Van Mastricht's 
Theology (who presents its leading points), lib. VI., cap. VI., § 29, pp. 715— 
718,. and lib. Till.,, cap. I., §§ 34, usque ad 39, pp. 887-891, and cap. II.. §§ 
50 7 54, pp. 932-936, and cap. III.. § 41, page 1071. 



380 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



as held by those divines, has now been by Dr. Hodge, through an 
inconceivable miscomprehension of the terms, merged into that of 
a gratuitous imputation, by which the ethical appropriation of the 
first sin is removed from the creature as its source, and trans- 
ferred, or left to be traceable to the divine efficiency alone. 

There can be no rational ground for doubt that the Augustinian, 
or Calvinistic church has ever taught that the sin of Adam is right- 
fully imputed to his posterity, and that guilt and depravity came 
upon them just as they did upon him ; and, moreover, that their 
guilt is one and simple, to-wit : the guilt of the original apostasy y 
and that it is imputed, therefore, because it is theirs, not indeed as 
personally contracted, but morally and legally theirs. The ques- 
tion then occurs, Does this imputation take place, and is this guilt 
thus accounted theirs, simply because God established a covenant 
relation between Adam and his posterity in order to constitute 
them responsible for his acts in virtue of such representation ? or 
is it accounted theirs because it is really and truly theirs in virtue 
of their actual participation with their covenant head in the fall ? 
The view of the Church on this question is, we think, clearly set- 
tled by the abundant testimony adduced on the preceding pages, to 
the effect that the sin is theirs because of their participation there- 
in. It is not necessary to discuss here the inquiry, whether God,, 
in the exercise of His sovereignty, may not constitute one person 
liable for the sins of another with which he has had no real con- 
nection ; for the Church has ever held, as Charnock has truly ex- 
pressed it, that " God cannot pollute any undefiled creature by 
virtue of that sovereign power which He has to do what He will 
with it, because such an act would be contrary to the foundation 
and right of His dominion." 1 He regards and treats the posterity 
as sinners, therefore, not by virtue of any sovereign power He may 
have to do so, but because they participated in the first transgres- 
sion, and sinned when Adam sinned. 

We repeat, therefore, emphatically, that the doctrine plainly 
announced by Augustine on this subject, and which has always been 
entertained and defended b}^ the Calvinistic church, affirms, 1,. 
The natural and moral (or federal) headship of Adam ; 2, That 
the threatening in Gen. ii. 17, included, not only the loss of origi- 
nal righteousness, but spiritual and eternal death ; 3, That in the 
1 Discourse X., on the Attributes. 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



381 



threatening both Adam and his naturally-begotten posterity were 
all comprehended; 4, And consequently, that all the evils which 
his posterity suffer result from the first transgression. Thus far 
Pighius and Catharinus, and other advocates of the gratuitous im- 
putation of sin, concur in statement with Augustine ; but at this 
point they diverge vitally and fundamentally from the doctrine 
he taught, they claiming that " the first transgression" was Adam's 
^personal sin alone, which, being gratuitously imputed to the race 
when guiltless of subjective ill-desert, was the procuring cause of 
all the evils we suffer ; whilst Augustine and the Reformed church 
teach that the first transgression was not Adam's personal sin alone, 
but our sin also in and with him, and which, being imputed, pro- 
duced all those appalling evils, since in that transgression they all 
sinned, not putatively, but originally and potentially, and thus 
were constituted dfiaprwXoe — really sinners. In other words, by 
participating in that offence they became culpable, so that his sin 
.and their sin in and with him was imputed to them all ; and that 
hence from this common and universal sin originated the inherent 
hereditary corruption in which we all are born. 

Such is the Church view. She has never denied, but, on the 
contrary, has always pronounced it a heresy to deny that the very 
sin of Adam is imputed to his posterity. But her doctrine is, 
and ever has been, that this sin is imputed to us, not simply be- 
cause of Adam's guilt therein, but because we ourselves partici- 
pated with Adam therein, and that therefore it is charged upon us 
as well as upon him, and that we with him are thereby constituted 
sinners. It was imputed to him and to Eve because they were 
guilty alike of its formal perpetration ; and was not inputed to 
Eve merely because Adam had committed it (though he was her 
representative), but because she had participated therein. And in 
like manner it was imputed to the rest of the race, not merely be- 
cause their father was guilty of its perpetration, but because they 
were guilty by participation when " all sinned ;" that is, there was 
a moral and objective ground in his case, and in the case of Eve, 
and in the case also of their posterity, for regarding and treating 
them as sinners. 

The imputation, therefore, was not that of a peccatuni alienum, 
or gratuitous in either case. It was direct or immediate to Adam 
and Eve, but not antecedent to their personal transgression. With 



382 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



their posterity, however, who sinned in and with them, it was both 
immediate and antecedent^ for they were not yet in possession of 
actual personality, or, as Augustine expresses it, of the forms of 
life and being which thereafter they should possess. 1 Nor has the 
Church ever confounded immediate and antecedent imputation. 
Dr. Hodge, however, has repudiated the doctrine thus presented 
by affirming that in the first offence the posterity of Adam con- 
tracted no subjective guilt or ill-desert, and that all the evils they 
suffer are penal inflictions on account of Adam's merely personal 
sin — a sin which, as he affirms, is purely a foreign sin, or peccatum 
alienum. 

The persistence with which the Doctor endeavors to fasten upon 
the standards of our Church this notion or principle of compulsory 
guilt and representation is marvellous ; and it is apparent in all his 
writings, though, as we have shown, he has really nothing to sus- 
tain him therein. Nor is this all; for with equal absence of proof 
he claims that the same notion is supported by Augustine in the 
early Church; 2 and that the Papal church entertains it, 3 and like- 
wise the Lutheran and Calvinistic churches, 4 notwithstanding their 
lamentable forgetfulness and oversight in the framing of their 
Confessions, for, important and fundamental as he deems it, he is 
obliged to confess that not one of those symbols contains it. 5 And 
his mind is so partial to the hypothesis (as parents often are to 
their offspring) that he can see its image in everything, and the- 
ology is, in fact, of little account without it ; 6 and he seems ready 
on this hypothesis to solve all her weightier problems, as the mu- 
sician mentioned in the Tusculan Questions, to whom music was 
everything, the soul itself being only certain notes of the gamut, 
etc. Lord Yerulam refers to this fascination of an endeared hy- 
pothesis, which, being heartily accepted (especially if its elabora- 
tion has cost some pains), will diffuse its ideas through everything- 
with which we are or would be conversant. Dr. Hammond found 
Gnostics everywhere referred to in the New Testament, and shapes 
his interpretations accordingly ; and Malebranche mentions a la- 

1 De Civitate Dei, lib. XIIT., cap. 14. 

2 Theology, Vol. II., pp. 157-164. 3 Ibid., p. 180. 

4 Ibid., p. 194, and Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 338-342. 

5 Theology, Vol. It., pp. 228-231. 

6 Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 132, 133, and Review for 1860, p. 341. 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



383 



borious scholar who, having prepared some learned volumes on the 
cross, could at last discover crosses in everything, and finally per- 
ceived their existence in the circular shape of coins. Even Des 
Cartes, after long pondering on and defending his elemental hypo- 
thesis, could at length solve all the phenomena in the physical (if 
not in the mental and moral) universe on the principle of "matter 
and motion." And Dr. Hodge, in like manner, finds his theory 
everywhere in theology, and of course, therefore, it must exist in 
our doctrinal symbols. For example, in the Princeton Essays 1 he 
cites and comments on a passage in the Larger Catechism (Ques- 
tion 22) as follows: "'The covenant being made with Adam as a 
public person, not for him only, but for his posterity, all mankind 
descended [descending] from him by ordinary generation sinned 
in him and fell with him in his first transgression.' If English 
be any longer English, this means that it was our representative — 
as a public person we sinned in him — in virtue of a union result- 
ing from a covenant or contract. Let it be noted that this is the 
only union here mentioned. The bond arising from our natural 
relation to him, as our common parent, is not even referred to. 
It is neglected because of its secondary importance, representation 
being the main ground of imputation ; so that when representation 
ceases, imputation ceases, although the natural bond continues.'' 2 
In this doctrinal statement from our standards the spontaneity 
and self-appropriation of the posterity in the first sin are carefully 
recognized. "All mankind sinned in him and fell with him," — 
words which, in the language of the Westminster divines, cannot 
be made to mean that they sinned after he had sinned; or that, 
being innocent of sin, they had sin changed npoyi them. But in Dr. 
Hodge's exposition, as here presented, that idea has no place. In 
'any instance of representation wherein the representative, acting 
from or in accordance with the known will of his constituents, 
perpetrates a crime, it is perfectly germane to say, ' They acted 
concurrently ',' ' they transgressed with him.' But in a case wherein 
they neither had, nor could have had, any agreement with him in 
his act, and in which there could have been no possible concur- 
rence with him until subsequent to his act, which not until then was 
charged upon them, and that not as being guilty of perpetration, 

1 First Series, p. 187. 

2 Compare this with his Theology, Vol. II., pp. 198-201. 



■"384 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. v 

or even of any acquiescence therein, but as wholly innocent of any 
ethical connection with it, it is clearly an abuse of language to 
pretend to describe this subsequent charge or accusation by affirm- 
ing that they sinned or rebelled together with him ! Now such is 
the language of the symbol in this very passage — there vjas a con- 
joint sinning and falling; which cannot, I repeat it, be construed, 
without violence, to mean that they did not sin and fall until after 
he had sinned and fallen. And yet this is the conception which 
Dr. Hodge insists is not only reconcilable with, but actually and 
necessarily ("if English be any longer English") taught in the 
language here cited, and in other similar passages of our stand- 
ards ! His theory excludes the conjoint acquiescence of the race 
with their head, and their ethical appropriation of his sin, which 
is the doctrine actually taught by the Assembly. And then, fur- 
ther, as regards his allegation that the natural relation is not even 
mentioned or referred to in the passage, though the constituency 
itself is therein not only plainly named and defined as sustaining 
the natural relation to their covenant head, and though our blessed 
Redeemer is therein expressly excluded from that constituency on 
the ground that He did not sustain the natural relation to Adam 
in the sense of descending from him by ordinary generation (a 
phrase which refers solely to Him), our readers must decide for 
themselves whether such a criticism does not furnish an insight 
into the ground of many of the Doctor's unaccountable and fatal 
misapprehensions of the meaning of our standards and of the 
leading Calvinistic divines. 

As to the Calvinistic doctrine of the covenant, therefore, to the 
consideration of which we would now return, the transaction has 
been presented in two different aspects. One, as in the foregoing 
and other passages from Dr. Hodge, as a merely legal enactment, 
a command or law enjoined under the wholly inappropriate name 
of covenant or contract, in which the mere will or sovereignty of 
God appoints and regulates and disposes of everything. The 
other presents the aspect (which we have already mentioned) of 
agreement or treaty wherein the agency of both parties alike is 
recognized and regarded, and man is left to the freedom of his 
own will, God retaining (of course) His sovereign right to com- 
mand or enjoin, but at the same time leaving, as we have already 
said, the moral agency of the creature — that is, his accountable 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



385 



nature — unimpaired and uncontrolled by that mere sovereignty, 
and fully responsible for its procedure in regard to the whole 
transaction ; and, moreover, that the proceeding assumed this form 
rather than that of mere sovereign disposal (which God unques- 
tionably possessed the prerogative to exercise) solely from his 
infinite condescension to the creatures of His hand. Now, Dr. 
Hodge accepts the former of these views, which is the basis of his 
theory, and the latter is the one held and inculcated by the 
Church. 

To predicate, as has been repeatedly attempted, the accuracy of 
the former of these views, upon the mere ground of the uncon- 
trollable sovereignty of God ; that is, to maintain that, because He 
is thus sovereign, therefore such must have been the character 
of this transaction, is to deduce a wholly unsupported and un- 
warrantable conclusion. It is in no sense true that, because He 
possesses the right so to appoint and order the affair, He therefore 
did not or could not, in condescension to the creature, employ the 
form of a covenant, and the argument is worthless. And then, 
such a transaction being mere law, and not covenant in the proper 
sense (as we have said), it is precisely this representation which 
identities the theory of Dr. Hodge with that of the Armenians (in 
the fifth century), and of Ocham, and Catharinus, Crellins, Taylor 
of Norwich, Curcellseus, "Whitby and others, which the Church 
always and with one voice has condemned. So far as they have 
given expression to the idea of a covenant transaction, they all 
alike agree that the pactum, was made with Adam alone for him- 
self and offspring ; while they utterly repudiate the Augustinian 
view ; that is, they all deny that it was made with Adam's pos- 
terity, except putatively ; i. <?., in the same sense as that in which 
they sinned when he sinned. And this is simply to attribute the 
production of sin, as it exists in the posterity, to the efficient agency 
of God; for you cannot attribute the sin and misery of the race 
to a merely putative sin as its cause, without rendering this, con- 
clusion inevitable. 

The Church, therefore, has always represented the transaction 
as truly a covenant, an agreement or treaty between God on the 
one hand, and Adam and his seed on the other, and not as a mere 
law; and not made with Adam only for his seed, but icith him 
and with them. How the moral responsibility of the seed was 
25 



386 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



directly or really preserved, as in trie case of Adam and Eve, was 
not set aside, or (so to speak) overridden, the Church has never 
pretended to know, any more than to know how their agency was 
associated with his in the violation of that covenant when all sin- 
ned. But the fact of such violation being divinely announced, the 
other fact becomes a certainty, that they participated with hem; 
in the covenant transaotion. Both facts are alike incompre- 
hensible to the reason. But the divine testimony cannot be set 
aside on that account. 

The point in issue, therefore, is the doctrine of participation as 
related to both the covenant and its transgression. In other 
words, were the posterity (as well as Adam) a party in the cove- 
nant ? And to deny this is, as we have said, hopelessly to aban- 
don the Calvinistic doctrine and to take sides with its foes. Since 
the time of Cocceius there has been a good deal of verging in this 
direction by sundry divines, and a proportionable misstatement of . 
the Calvinistic system ; for this is a controlling feature of that 
system. But even those who assumed the highest' ground in our 
theology of representing the covenant as made with Adam, never 
lose sight of this great truth; as, for example, when Witsius, "On 
the Covenants," remarks : " But there is another relation, in which 
he was considered as the head and representative of mankind, both 
federal and 'natural. So that God said to Adam, as once to the 
Israelites (Deut. xxix. 14, 15), neither with you only do 1 make 
this covenant and this oath ; but also with him that is not here with 
us this day. The whole history of the first man proves that he is • 
not to be looked upon as an individual person, but that the whole 
human nature is considered as in him." 1 

Dr. Hodge, in affirming that the covenant was made with Adam 
only, simply persists, as in many other instances (some of which 
we have already noticed), in taking what is merely a i^art of the 
v recognized statement of our theology for the whole, as Adam's 
posterity had then no developed or personal existence, the cove- 
nant was made formally and jjersonally with him alone. But this 
is only a part of the statement of our theology on the subject ; for 
it everywhere recognizes that, though made formally for them, it 
was made really with them as with him ; and to ignore this 
constantly asserted fact is simply to misrepresent the doctrine of 
1 See Book I., chapter 2, § 14, pages 62, 63. 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



387 



our Church ; and yet Dr. Hodge must do this, or else abandon his 
theory. For when our theologians allege that it was made with 
Adam and for his seed, they, as we have shown, never mean to 
exclude the fact that it was at the same time made with his seed, 
and that they were a party as well as he. Dr. Hodge's concep- 
tion is, moreover, contrary to all the analogies of the word of God 
on the subject. The covenant was made with Adam and all his 
naturally begotten posterity; and in the term itself, and from the 
analogy of all other covenants which God has made with men, it 
is never with them as single individuals only, but with the head 
and members, the trunk and its branches. Thus was it with Noah 
and his family (Gen. vi. 18), Abraham and his seed (Gen. xvii. 7, 
8), David and his posterity (2 Sam. vii. 16, and Ps. 89), Christ and 
His seed (Gen. iii. 15; Rom. v. 12; Ps. 89). And why should 
all this have been unless because He had in the same way cove- 
nanted with Adam and all his posterity ? — the second Adam only 
excepted, who, if the race had retained its integrity, need not have 
assumed our nature as a Redeemer ; but yet, in view of our fore- 
seen fall and sin, was appointed to be the Head and Principal of 
the second confederation. 1 

Yan Mastricht, in treating the subject, 2 says, " It is asked, 2, 
Whether the covenant of works was constituted in Adam with 
the whole human race, Christ only excepted ? The Pelagians and 
Socinians, that they may be able the more effectually to throw off 
original corruption and retain an unimpaired free will, deny that 
this covenant was constituted in Adam with the whole human 
race. They do not acknowledge, or at least frankly acknowledge, 
that an actual covenant of works should be admitted. They own, 
indeed, that the whole human race was reckoned in Adam, and 
also that they sinned in him (i. e., putatively) ; but they do not 
admit that God contracted ivith all, or that they sinned by violating 
the contract ; or if He did even contract, that He did at least pro- 
mise to Adam (if he should obey), and to all his posterity, eternal 
life. The Reformed affirm that the covenant of works in Adam 
was constituted with the whole human race, Christ only excepted, 
as well in relation to the promise of life if Adam should persist in 
obedience, as to the threatening of death should he disobey." 

1 See Van Mastricht's Theol., lib. III., cap. 12, § 10, p. 147. 

2 Ibid. § 24, page 421. 



388 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Essenius, in his admirable Compend, is very fall and satisfactory 
to the same purport. 1 He says : " But, described more fully, the 
first covenant is that which God so established with Adam, and 
likewise with the whole human race, which was reckoned in him as 
head," etc. (§ 115). And in § 117 : "As to the order of the hu- 
man race, Adam was the first and universal father of all men, as 
Eve was their mother. (Gen. iii. 20 ; confer Acts xvii. 26.) But 
Adam was also the beginning of the woman, and her head. (Gen. 
ii. 21, 22, 23 ; Eph. v. 23.) So all their posterity were virtually 
in Adam as the first cause of this race (tanquam causa prima istins 
generis) ; which is a natural (physical) consideration. But to 
this is to be added another, apolitical and federal constitution, as 
all the posterity were reckoned in Adam," etc. 

Altingius, also, after adverting to the views of Socinus, and cit- 
ing Ostorodus, says, " From all which it appears more clear than 
the sun at noonday, that they deny both parts of original sin ; for, 
1, They deny the transgression of the posterity of Adam in his 
loins ; 2, They deny that the corruption of nature followed from 
thence, and is propagated with nature itself to all universally 
(Christ only excepted) by carnal generation." " They who, through 
the disobedience of Adam, are constituted sinners participated in 
his transgressions ." 2 

Zanchius lays down the following proposition : " That original 
sin, in which all men are implicated, is not so much a foreign sin 
as the sin of every man ; nor was it so ?nuch the proper sin of Adam 
as it was the common sin of all." 3 Again, on page 37, " When, 
therefore, the apostle says that all sinned in Adam when he, dis- 
obeying, partook of the forbidden fruit, he signifies that then all 
men also who were in his loins sinned with him." 

We need not continue these citations, for with one voice the 
Augustinian theologians have always maintained that the posterity 
were no less a party in the covenant than Adam himself; that it 
was constituted with them not less than with him, and not simply 
with him for them ; and hence that its violation was as really theirs 
as it was his, and as justly imputed to them as to himself- — im- 
puted to them, therefore, as their own sin, and not as the merely 

1 Compend. Dog. Theologian, cap. IX., §§ 115-117. (Ultrecht, 1682.) 

2 Heidelberg-Scriptor., pp. 452, 453. 

3 Tom. IV., page 53, Thesis IV. 



THE THEORY AXD CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



389 



personal sin of Adam — a peccatum alienum. The whole of which 
representation is set aside and ignored by the theory of Dr. 
Hodge. 

In explaining the analogy in Rom. v. 12-21, we remarked that 
the exposition put upon the language of Paul by Dr. Hodge has 
nothing to sustain it in either our approved theology or exegesis ; 
and in § 17, in which we present the analyses of the passage by 
the theologians of the Church, the reader has seen that they 
wholly discard Dr. Hodge's fundamental position, on which his 
whole theory is based, to-wit: that the modes of justification and 
condemnation form, an integral part of the comparison. This, of 
course, is therefore a full rejection of his whole theory and exe- 
gesis. But it is proper here to state that several later divines, as 
Marck and De Afoor, think that the modes are compared so far 
as the fact of an imputation in both cases is concerned, but at the 
same time are very careful to state that the imputations themselves 
are not to be compared ; for there would be danger to the truth 
from such a procedure in regard to both branches of the compari- 
son ; that is, it should not be strained, on the one hand, so as to 
enervate the doctrine of justification by faith alone, nor, on the 
other, the doctrine that the first sin was the common sin of the 
race, and that the posterity of Adam were already corrupt and 
sinful when his sin was imputed to them. In other words, that 
the comparison of the modes pertains simply to the fact that both 
sin and righteousness are imputed, and is not to be pressed so as to 
teach, on the one hand, that because the posterity of Adam sub- 
jectively deserved the imputation of his sin, the spiritual seed of 
Christ therefore subjectively deserve the imputation of His right- 
eousness ; % or, on the other hand, that because Christ's righteousness 
is imputed gratuitously, the sin of Adam was gratuitously imputed 
to a subjectively innocent offspring, as was then asserted by the 
Socinians and Remonstrants. And as thus qualified and guarded, 
the statement that the modes may be referred to in the analogy, 
even if admitted, is, as is evident, wholly subversive of the doctrine 
of the gratuitous imputation of sin ; and yet this is as far as any of 
the Church theologians have departed from the early view. 

It is, therefore, a wholly illogical assumption that, simply because 
Adam was appointed the moral head of the race, or posterity, their 
depravity is in any sense of the term the penal consequence of his 



390 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

personal sin. Even in his own case depravity was not the punish- 
ment of his act of transgression. The penalty was not, " In the 
day thou eatest thou shalt become depraved," since he could 
not have eaten until he was depraved ; and why, then, should the 
moral corruption of his seed be regarded as the punishment of 
that act? They participated with him in his sin, and in the de- 
pravity which prompted it, and so with him brought themselves 
under condemnation ; and his sin (not the act merely) was charged 
upon them. But his being their representative, or federal head, 
in no way proves that in his posterity depravity wears the aspect 
of a direct penal infliction more than in himself. They, as he, 
became depraved by their participation in the first sin, which 
thereupon was imputed to them. So that the whole idea of a 
representation which ignores the spontaneity of the race, and so 
overrides it as to compel a guiltiness in them without regard to 
their conjoint action with their head, and their own ethical appro- 
priation of his guilt, must be discarded as foreign to our theology, 
and as charging upon God the efficient production of sin in the 
race, and consequently as being not only unsupported by His 
word, but as at variance therewith in every particular. 

That the whole theory, from its first broaching, was not only 
totally unrecognized by the Church, but pointedly condemned, is 
clearly apparent from the citations of her testimony on our pre- 
vious pages; but in a thorough exhibit of the topic it is desirable 
that this statement should be sustained by historical detail of the 
facts, and we shall endeavor briefly so to present it in the remain- 
ing part of this section. 

Pelagius and his immediate followers were unquestionably the 
authors of the doctrine, or rather of the principles upon which it 
is based ; for they did not give to it a formulated expression . We 
need not cite them, however, for they are sufficiently brought to 
view incidentally in the course of this treatise. But we find the 
concept, that 'sin may be gratuitously imputed to the guiltless, 
inculcated at quite an early period in the Armenian church. 
Zanchius, when treating upon the false views which have been 
inculcated on original sin, charges it as one of the three leading 
errors which they entertained. His words are: "In sententia 
itaque Armeniorum tres sunt errores : 1, Nullam reipsa in homines 
derivari peccatum ab Adamo, ut et Pelagius dicebat. 2, Omnes 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



391 



tamen damnationi aetemae obnoxious teneri propter alienum pec- 
catum. Adse scilicet, omnium hominum parentis, nisi per Chris- 
tum liberentur." 1 In the view, then, of this truly great and 
representative divine — the intimate friend and correspondent of 
Calvin, Hyperius, Bullinger, Melancthon, Bucer, and Ursinus — it 
was a grievous error to hold that the posterity of Adam, unless 
they should be redeemed by Christ, would have been exposed to 
^eternal death on account of a peccatum alienum. or foreign sin of 
their parent. In the Latin church, however, the error does not 
make its appearance until much later. P. Lombard (1164) refers, 
without naming them, to some who taught it. He says : " Quidam 
cnim (scolastici doctores) putant originate peccatum esse reatum 
2>oence pro p>eccato primi ho?ninis,id est, debitum, vel obnoxietatem 
qua obnoxii et addicti sumus pcense temporali et setemse pro primi 
hominis actuali peccato, quia pro illo, ut aiunt, omnibus debetur 
poena seterna, nisi per gratiam liberentur." 2 This is precisely a 
reiteration of the error of the Armenians referred to above. And 
when Scotus (130S), by his bold and unambiguous assertion that 
Xi morality is founded on will," had fairly laid the foundation for 
that superstructure (which had never thoroughly been done before), 
his disciple Ochamus, or Ockham (1317), the founder of the re- 
vived sect of the Nominalists, gave to it a full and formal expres- 
sion, and denned original sin, as imputed to the posterity of Adam, 
to be "the guilt of a foreign sin without any inherent demerit of 
our own," — ("reatus alieni peccati sine aiiquo vitio heerente in 
nobis,") — i. e., as the ground or basis of its imputation. Chem- 
nitz also, in referring to the scholastics, says : " There are those 
who think that original sin is neither privation nor any positive 
■depravity, but only guilt on account of the fall of Adam, without 
any inherent ill-desert of our own, — sed tantum reatum propter 
lapsum Adse sine pravitate aliqua h^rente in nobis," 3 — thus mak- 
ing the moral pollution of our nature and all the calamities of life 
result from a peccatum alienum alone : all of which representations 
evince that such a conception is exceptional, and in conflict with 
what the Church has ever regarded as the Augustinian doctrine. 
And when Erasmus, with his strong predilections for Pelagianism, 

1 Opp. Tom. IV., pp. 34, 35. 

2 Lib. II., Distinct. 30, p. 211. (Paris, 1846.) 

* Examen Cone. Tridentini. Parte I., p. 97. (Frankfort, 1578.) 



392 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



adopted the same view (and our readers must excuse the reitera- 
tion of this instance, for it is most important in the present con- 
nection), Luther thus adverts to it: "And it seems that in our own 
day, also, there are those who are deceived by this argument; for 
they so speak of original sin (i. e., inherent corruption) as if it 
were no fault of ours, but only punishment (ac si non culpa sed 
tantum poena), as Erasmus somewhere argues, in express terms,, 
"that original sin is a punishment inflicted on our first parents, 
which we their posterity are compelled to suffer on account of 
another's crime, without any demerit of our own (propter alienam 
culpam, sine nostro merito), as an illegitimate child is obliged to 
endure the shame arising, not from his own fault, but from that 
of his mother; for how could he have sinned who as yet did not 
existV These things may be flattering to reason, but they are 
full of impiety and blasphemy " ! And further on he adds : 
"Satan makes a mighty effort that he may nullif y original sin ; 
and this would be to deny the passion and resurrection of Christ." 

Pighius and Catharinus (who both were subsequently members 
of the Council of Trent) taught at this time the same view, though 
Dr. Hodge has made a futile effort to distinguish between his own 
doctrine of representation and imputation and that taught by those 
men, which was rejected and denounced by the Reformers as a de- 
nial of the doctrine of original sin ; but on this point our readers 
can, from the facts we shall adduce, easily judge for themselves. 
Pighius, in 1542, in a work in which Chemnitz, in his Examen 
(page 97), gives an analysis, had clearly asserted the doctrine in 
question, and maintained that the actual transgression of Adam is 
transmitted and propagated to his posterity only by guilt and pun- 
ishment (reatu tantum et poena), without any corruption and de- 
pravity inhering in them, and that they, on account of the sin of 
Adam, are now guilty, because they have been constituted exiles 
from the kingdom of heaven, are subjected to the dominion of death,, 
exposed (obnoxii) to eternal, condemnation, and are involved in all 
the miseries of human nature, even as servants are born of other 
servants (who, by their own fault, have forfeited their freedom), 
not through their personal or proper desert, but by that of their 
parents ; and as children born out of wedlock suffer the shame of 
their mother, without any inherent fault of their own." This doc- 
trine of Pighius, which was simply a restatement of that of Erasmus, 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



393 



and of the scholastic doctors above referred to. was. as Chemnitz 
remarks, approved and accepted by Catharinus, and presented by 
him before the Council of Trent (daring the discussion of the doc- 
trine of original sin), in two orations, containing the following clear 
statements: "He maintained," says Polano, "that it is necessary 
to distinguish sin from the punishment : that concupiscence and, the 
privation of righteousness is the punishment of sin ; and that 
therefore it is necessary that the sin should be another tliing. 5r 
He added, that "'that which was not a sin in Adam it is impossible 
should be a sin in us ; but neither of these two were a sin in Adam, 
because neither privation of righteousness nor concupiscence were 
his actions: therefore, neither are they in us; and if they icere 
the effects of sin in him. rf necessity they must oe in others also 
(sin vero in eo peccati ' f uerint effectus, in aliis itidem esse;. By 
which reason it cannot be said that sin is the enmity of God 
against the sinner, nor the sinner's enmity against God, seeing they 
are things 'which follow sin and come after it." He ojjjjv.gn.ed 
likewise the transmission of sin through generation, saying, "'that 
as, if Adam had not sinned, righteousness would have been trans- 
ferred, not by virtue of generation, out only by the will of (rod 
(non virtute generationis, sed sola Dei voluntate . so it is jit to find 
another method for the transfusion of sin:' And he explained 
his opinion in this form. " That as God made a covenant with 
Abraham, and all his posterity when He made him father of the 
faithful, so when He gave original righteousness to Adam and all 
mankind, He made him such an obligation in the name of all to 
keep it for himself and them, observing the commandments, which 
because he transgressed he lost it as 'well for others as for himself eo 
[mandato] antem violato justiriarn earn tain aliis quarn sibiamisit;. 
and incurred the punishment alike for them ; the which, as they are 
derived to every one, so the very transgression of Adam belonged 
to every one — to him as the cause, to others in virtue of the cove- 
nant (illius tanquam causa?, aliorum, virtute pactionis) ; so that the 
action of Adam is actual sin in him, and imputed to others it 
constitutes (constituat) original sin, because in him sinning the 
whole human race sinnedP Catharinus based his opinion chiefly 
on the ground that, in the true and proper sense, sin is nothing 
else than a voluntary act : but there was no voluntary act except 
the transgression of Adam imputed to all. And what Paul says r 



394 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



that all have sinned in Adam, cannot be otherwise understood than 
that all had committed the same sin with him. He alleged, for 
example, that Paul says to the Hebrews, that Levi paid tithes to 
Melchisedek, when he had paid them in his great grandfather, 
Abraham, by which reason it must be said, that the posterity vio- 
lated the commandment of God ivhen Adam did it, and that they 
were sinners in him, as in him they received righteousness. And 
so there is no need to recur to concupiscence (libidinem) which in- 
fects the flesh, from which the soul is vitiated by the infection ; 
for it can scarcely be understood how a spirit receives a corporeal 
infection ; because if sin were a spiritual blemish in the soul, it 
could not first be in the flesh ; and if it be corporeal in the flesh 
it can produce no effect in the spirit. That the soul, therefore, 
because it is joined to an infected body, doth receive spiritual in- 
fection, is an inconceivable transcendency." He proved the cove- 
nant of God with Adam by a place in the prophet Hosea, and by 
another in Ecclesiasticus, and by many places in St. Augustine. 
That the sin of every one is the act only of the transgression of 
Adam {%. e. by a forensic imputation), he proved by St. Paul, where 
he saith that by the disobedience of one man many were made 
sinners ; and because in the Church it has ever been understood 
that sin itself is nothing but a voluntary action against the law, of 
which kind there was none but that of Adam ; and because St. 
Paul says that death entered by original sin, whereas death entered 
in no other way than by actual transgression." Then, for his 
Achillean dart, he adduced the fact that, though Eve did not eat 
the apple before Adam, yet she knew not that she was naked, 
nor that she had incurred the punishment, but only after he had 
sinned. Therefore Adairts sin, as it was not his alone, but 
pertained to Eve also, so it was of all his posterity" Then, in 
his second speech, he " in like manner maintained that the cove- 
nant was made with Adam alone, and that every one hath sin by 
imputation of that of Adam, so that the intermediate parents have 
nothing to do therewith." 1 

Now this theory, thus expounded and set forth in the Council in 
1546, was repudiated by the divines of the Reformation to a man, 

1 We cite the Historia Gone. Tridentini, by P. S. Polano, lib. II., pp. 192, 
193 (Frankfort, 1621), and have generally followed Brent's translation, pp. 
175, 176. 



THE THEORY AXD CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



395 



as subversive of the whole system of grace. Nor can one pro- 
minent theologian, either Lutheran or Calvinist, be named amongst 
them after this utterance, who (in referring to original sin) has 
not directly adverted to and condemned it as presented either by 
Catharinus or Pighius. The Socinians, however, who became a 
sect in Poland during the latter part of that century, adopted and 
defended it with great zeal and learning; with a view to destroy 
the doctrine of our participation in the first sin, and, as we have 
shown in a previous section, elaborated in its support the exegesis 
of Horn. v. 12-21, which has now been adopted also by Dr. Hodge 
for the same purpose, who. having repudiated the doctrine of par- 
ticipation, affirms that in the first offence the posterity of Adam 
contracted no subjective guilt or ill-desert, and that all the evils they 
suffer are penal inflictions on account of Adam's merely personal 
sin — a sin which, as he affirms, is to them purely a foreign sin, or 
jteceatum alienum. 

The reply of Dominico Soto to the foregoing speculation of 
Catharinus we shall cite presently. But in referring to these 
views of Catharinus, the historian remarks, that the Bishops in the 
Council, of whom but few knew anything of theology, being 
either lawyers or learned men of the court, were confounded with 
this method of treating the subject, and among so many opinions 
knew not what to think of the essence of original sin: but "'that 
•of Catharinus was best understood because it was expressed by a 
political conceit of a bargain made by one for his posterity, which 
being transgressed, they were all undoubtedly bound ; and many 
of the Council favored it." 

Such, then, was the theory and exegesis of Catharinus and 
Pighius, which, though approved by several Papal divines of the 
day who had adopted the principles of Ockham, was steadily op- 
posed and rejected by the great body of the Latin church (as ex- 
pressed subsequent to the Council), and by the entire body of the 
Protestant church, whose divines to a man disclaimed and de- 
nounced it as a denial of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin. 

Pighius was more frequently referred to as inculcating the 
theory than Catharinus, because his book (to which we have re- 
ferred) was more extensively known than the speeches of the 
latter in the Council. And Chemnitz, after thoroughly discussing 
the subject and exposing the ruinous tendency of the speculation 



396 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



(as the Council refused to condemn it), places on record as his own. 
testimony the following impressive declaration: "For the per- 
petual remembrance of the thing, therefore, be it known to the 
whole Christian world, that the profane notion (I will give it no 
harsher name) of Pighius was neither forbidden nor condemned 
in the Tridentine decree; but that it was left with other profane 
reasonings of the scholastics concerning original sin as a mere 
matter of opinion!" (Examen, p. 98, col. 1.) And this judg- 
ment of Chemnitz was, as we have said, supported by the whole 
Reformed church, who pronounced the error (though it is precisely 
the theory of Dr. Hodge) to be a denial of the Church doctrine of 
original sin, and a direct repudiation of native depravity as a con- 
stituent of that sin. But how was it a denial of depravity ? Simply 
because it makes the imputation of AdarrCs personal sin {without 
reference to our own desert or participation therein), the procuring 
cause by penal infliction of all the sin and evils which have come 
upon his posterity ; which is precisely what is done by the theory 
of Dr. Hodge. For, as has been abundantly shown, the doctrine 
of the Protestant church was that the posterity of Adam are con- 
demned, not only for his sin, which was imputed to them, but for 
their own participation therein. Catharinus and Pighius were 
justly charged with denying the doctrine, because they maintained 
that the race was originally condemned for Adam's merely per- 
sonal sin, and that inherent depravity was not the ground but the 
penal consequence of that condemnation ; and if it were the conse- 
quence of that condemnation, of course it could not be a ground 
of it, as the divines of the Reformation universally affirmed it to 
be. If, then, those Papal divines deny (as the Reformers affirm 
that they do deny) the doctrine of original sin, by denying that 
"the judgment unto condemnation" came upon the race sub- 
jectively, or for its own inherent sin, and not for the sin of Adam 
alone, then, in their judgment, Dr. Hodge must be regarded as 
denying the same. 

Bat let us consider just at this point a few of the statements of 
the Reformed divines in which, like Chemnitz, they directly allude 
to it. 

Calvin, in a passage translated on a previous page, but of which 
the original also should be given to the reader, says : " Non per 
solam imputationem damnamur, ac si alieni peccati exigeretur a 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



397 



nobis poena ; sed ideo pcenain ejus sustinemus, quia et culpa? sumus 
Tei, quatenus scilicet natura nostra in ipso vitiata, iniquitatis reatu 
obstringitur apud Deum.'" 

Turrettin, referring to Catharinus, says that "he placed the 
whole nature of original sin in imputation alone, acknowledging 
no inherent corruption: 1 that is, as a ground for the imputation. 
This the sola imputatio, to which Calvin refers above ; but the 
statement, unqualified and unexplained, that Catharinus and Pighius 
" acknowledge no inherent corruption M calls for a remark in pass- 
ing. 

True it is that their whole doctrine respecting inherent corrup- 
tion (labe inhaerente) is extremely vague and preposterous, and 
they speak of it as lust, concupiscence, and the like; but it is at 
the same time true that they do not deny, but assert, that our 
nature is fallen and degraded from its pristine integrity, as may 
be seen by their views above cited. And further, that this fallen 
condition is the penal result of the imputation of Adam's sin. 
They deny that native concupiscence is voluntary, or a transgres- 
sion of the law, and therefore that it is sin in the proper sense, 
and affirm likewise that it is taken away in baptism ; but that our 
nature is degraded, and that this degradation is a punishment for 
the foreign sin of Adam, they constantly affirm. Dr. Hodge calls 
this state of degradation sin, or sinfulness, though he denies that 
it is voluntary on our part, and affirms, as they do, that it is a 
penal infliction on account of the peccatum alienum. Both alike, 
therefore, deny that it is a ground for the original imputation or 
sentence of condemnation. 

Those Papal divines, therefore, teaching, as they did, that all 
men are guilty in the sight of God for the sin of the first man, and 
that original sin is a foreign guilt, or peccatum alienum, and not 
properly the corruption of our nature, 2 denied, consequently, that 
concupiscence, either in adults or infants, or either before or after 
baptism, is sin, except by putation, and claim that it springs froni 
or arises out of the composition and temperature of parts of the 
human body, and likewise that the want of original righteousness, 
either in infants or adults, is sin, for the same reason, and .also be- 
cause there is no law of God requiring us to possess that original 

1 Loco IX., cap. 9, § 41, Tom. L, page 567. 

2 See Henry's Life of Calvin, Yol. I., p. 507. (Xew York, 1851.) 



398 



ORIGINAL SIX AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



righteousness which Adam possessed. But though "they thus 
quibble about calling these things sin, they affirm them to be 
punishments inflicted on us for the peccatum alienum of Adam ; 
and that they, properly speaking, are not vices, but conditions of 
our fallen humanity resulting from Adam's personal sin. And 
hence that this alone is original sin, to-wit : that the actual trans- 
gression of Adam is by guilt and punishment alone transmitted 
and propagated to his posterity, without any inherent depravity of 
theirs; and that they, on account of the sin of Adam, are now 
guilty, inasmuch as they have been made exiles from the kingdom 
of heaven, are subject to the kingdom of death, exposed to eternal 
damnation, and involved in all the miseries of our nature, and 
suffer the shame of this condition, as a son born out of wedlock 
suffers the infamy of his mother. And thus they freely admit 
that these fearful changes have come upon us, but deny that we 
brought them upon ourselves; and affirm that they are penal in- 
flictions for the sin of Adam alone. 

Dr. Hodge admits the same fearful changes, and in like manner 
denies that we brought them upon ourselves, and affirms also that 
they are inflicted as the penalty for the same sin ; but this privation 
of rectitude, etc., though involuntary on our part, he calls sin; 
while Catharinus and Pighius contend that, because they are in- 
voluntary, they are not sin, since sin is the transgression of law, 
and that the race had not transgressed when these calamities ori- 
ginally came upon it. They admit, therefore, with Dr. Hodge, 
the fallen condition of our nature, only they do not name the in- 
ordinate manifestations of it — e. g. in infancy — sin, as he does, 
and hence they do not acknowledge the name " inherent corrup- 
tion " as thus applied ; but they do acknowledge the facts as actu- 
ally existing which Dr. Hodge calls sin, and trace their origin to 
the same source that he does. Both alike reject the great funda- 
mental truth that we participated in the first sin, and such are 
the results of that rejection. 1 But we proceed with the argument. 

1 It is an interesting fact that Pighius, who in 1542 issued the work cited on 
a previous page, and which was replied to by Calvin in his De Libero Arbitrio, 
in 1543, was, by reading the works of Calvin in order to refute them, subse- 
quently converted to Protestantism. He was, for his mathematical and the- 
ological attainments; very eminent, and held in high esteem by Popes Hadrian 
VI., Clement VII., and Paul III. He was Archdeacon of St. John's church; 
at Utrecht. 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



In our former essay we presented a citation from Whittaker, 
wherein he, in as direct and pointed a manner as Chemnitz him- 
self, condemns this view of Catharinus and Pighius as a base and 
nefarious heresy. 1 In his Prcelectiones de Sacramentis, in which 
he replies in extenso to Bellarmin on the sacraments, he adverts to 
the same topic, 2 and after referring to the sin of Adam and its 
effects upon the race, he denounces Pighius, " ut ausus sit clicere 
peccatum originale non esse culpam, sed tantum pcenam peccati,. 
et tamen fatetur dici peccatum that is, that he should dare to 
say that original sin (or inherent corruption) is not a fault, hut 
only the punishment of sin, and yet should acknoivledge that it is 
called sin* " as Andradius, of whom we have already spoken ; that 
is, that it is not truly and properly sin, but fictitiously, as he applies 
to it the name sin. These things accrue from too great a license in 
evading the Scriptures. Unless, therefore, we -mould perpetually 
err, we should speak with the Scriptures, and ccdl sin what they 
call sin /" that is, we should not confound sin with the punish- 
ment of sin, for sin is truly and properly ours ; but the punishment 
of sin is from God. And again: " I do not say that these evils 
{i. e. life's calamities) are inflicted in all cases as punishment ; hut 
certainly they should not he inflicted on any one unless sin existed 
in him. Therefore I conclude thus : that all the calamities of life, 
and all kinds of death, are produced erom inherent sen (sic igitur 
concludo, Omnes hujus vitse calamitates, et omnia mortis genera 
ex peccato inhcerente nascuntur)." And now let our readers ob- 
serve that these remarks are pointed directly against the view 
above cited from Pighius and Catharinus : and let them, moreover, 
ask themselves, whether human language can exhibit a more direct 
antagonism than is therein presented to the animation of Dr. 
Hodge, so often cited on the preceding pages, that all the calami- 
ties of life, together with spiritual death, are the penalty of & pec- 
catum alienum ; that is, that they are not produced from in- 
herent SIN ? 

Whittaker then, after remarking that infants die, and therefore 

1 See Danville Revieic for 1862, page 265. 

8 See Qujest. IT., cap. III., pp. 271-274. (Frankfort, 1624.) 

3 So Dr. Hodge very properly, as above stated, calls inherent corruption 
SMi . but affirms that it is only the punishment of Adam's personal sin charged 
upon us. 



400 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



must have inherent sin (in illis vere peccatum), and that Christ, in 
whom was no sin, yet died, because (1), He willingly submitted to 
death; and (2), because our sins were imputed to Him, adds: 

"But we, BECAUSE SIN EXISTS WITHIN US, ARE EXPOSED TO DISEASE 
AND DEATH, AND TO ALL THE CALAMITIES OF LIFE." TllUS the doC- 

trine that an imputed peccatum alienum is the procuring cause, 
through penal infliction, of those evils, is thoroughly exploded and 
rejected as a pestilential heresy. 

We present likewise the testimony of another representative 
divine on the subject. Sohnius, the successor of ITrsinus in Heid- 
elberg, was a cotemporary of Whittaker, and fully his equal in 
ability and learning, and assails in like manner, and with irresistible 
effect, the same perversion of the doctrine. His tract on original 
sin (from which the following, as well as most of our previous 
•citations from him, are taken) is substantially presented in trans- 
lation by the late Dr. Archibald Alexander, of Princeton Semi- 
nary, and published in the Princeton Biblical Kepertory of 1830, 
and subsequently re-published as Essay V. in the first series of the 
Princeton Essays, and on introducing it Dr. Alexander says: 
But our object in bringing forward this work is not so much for 
the sake of its explanations and arguments, in all of winch we do 
not concur, as to furnish the inquisitive reader with a full view of 
the opinions of Protestants on this point in the period immediately 
■succeeding the Reformation. ■ And no one acquainted vnth eccle- 
siastical history will suppose that the doctrines here inculcated 
were peculiar to this author; the very same are found in the works 
of every Protestant writer of credit in that ageP (Page 116.) 
Let, then, our readers note what are those doctrines while they 
peruse the following passages. 

"It is again alleged," says Sohnius, "that punishments are not 
sins, but those defects and irregular inclinations which belong to 
human nature are the punishment of the sin of the first man, and 
cannot be of the nature of sin. But here, too, there is an applica- 
tion of a political maxim to a subject to which it does not belong; 
for it is a fact clearly established in the divine government, that 
the privation of the divine image and favor is both a sin and pun- 
ishment, but in different respects. In respect to God inflicting it, 
as a punishment ; for He, in just judgment, may deprive His crea- 
tures of His grace ; but in regard to man, this privation is a sin 



THE THEORY AXD CHURCH DOG^LATIC 



WHICH BY His OWX FAULT HZ HAS BROUGHT UPOX HIMSELF AND AT> 
"\fTTT"FT) UXTO HIS OWX SOUL." (Pp. H5. 11^.) 

"On this text (Rom. v. 12 ), it is worthy of remark, that it is 
not only asserted that the punishment of death has passed upon 
all men, but the reason is added, namely, 'because all have sinned ;' 
so that the fault and punishment, the guilt and pollution, are by 
the apostle joined tog ether." iPage 1*2*2.) 

In referring to the objection of Pighius, that there is nothing 
of sin propagated by natural generation, nor any inherent sin in 
man at his birth, except the guilt only of another's sin imputed, 
and that original sin consists not in any inherent corruption, "Out 
solely in our subjection to the punishment of the first sin, thai is, 
in contracted guilt without anything of depravity in our nature" 
thus excluding all participation in the first sin. Sohnius says : " Ir 
is a sufficient refutation of this doctrine that it is nowhere found 
in the Scriptures. : % And then, referring to the attempt of Pighius 
to prove it from Pom. v. 12-15. he continues: "In all these texts, 
says Pighius, the apostle attaches condemnation to the sin of Adam, 
and nothing else. To which it may be replied, that when the 
apostle declares that *sin entered into the world.' he does not 
mean merely that Adam had become a sinner, but that it had 
come upon all his descendants, that is, upon all men in the world : 
for he does not say in this place that guilt had entered, but that sin 
hod entered into the world. And this is not left to be inferred, etc. 
.... Moreover, w hen he declares that all are subject to death and 
condemnation by the sin of one, it is a just inference that they are 
all partakers of his sin, and are born in a state of moral pollution. 
In the 19th verse it is said. *'By the disobedience of one many are 
constituted sinners." ZSow, to be constituted sinners includes the 
idea, not only of being -made subject to the penalty, but partaking 
of the nature of sin; for they who are entirely free from the stain 
of sin cannot with propriety be called sinners" (P. 123.) 

"And finally, the Catholic church has ever held an opinion con- 
trary to the one which is now opposed. Augustine, in his second 
book against Pelagius and Celestius. expresses most exphcitly 
what we maintain: ' Whosoever/ says he. "contends that human 
nature, in any age, does not need the second Adam as a physician, 
on the ground that it has not been vitiated in the first Adam, does 
not fall into error which may be held without injury to the rule 



402 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of faith ; but, by that very rule by which we are constituted Chris- 
tians, is coyivicteal of being an enemy to the grace of God? (Page 
125.) 

Sobnius is cited also by Rivetus in bis " Testimonies " as fol- 
lows: "Again: 6 all are dead by tbe offence of one man;' there- 
fore his offence was the offence of all, but theirs by participation 
and imputation ; otherwise they could not be said to be dead by 

the ofTence of one, but by many offences In one respect it 

was the sin of Adam, and was not original sin, but actual, origi- 
nating, — that is, giving origin to the original sin of his posterity ; 
in another respect it w 7 as the sin of his posterity, who were in his 
loins, so that in mass they committed the same sin, and hence it 

is imputed to them all Bellarmine's first proposition is,, 

6 that the transgression of Adam, which is the transgression of the 
whole human race, is original sin, if by sin he meant an action.' 
This is correct, if it only be added, If sin be taken for an action, 
not of Adam alone, but of his posterity, who, in mass, sinned in 
Adam ; for thus this action toas ours, pertaining in the first place- 
to our original sin? 

These few examples, concurred in by the entire Church, may 
serve as specimens of the argument by which the divines of the 
Reformation rebutted the efforts to support the pernicious theory 
that we are accounted and treated as sinners, and punished because 
of "the one sin of the one man," and that this (and not our parti- 
cipation in the first ■ sin) is why we are in a fallen and degraded 
condition, morally polluted, and exposed to all the evils which 
penally inflict onr common humanity. In this decided manner do 
they disclaim and reject that doctrine, and on the contrary affirm 
that we suffer life's evils because of our inherent sin — our actual 
participation in the sin and fall of our first parents. And now,, 
alongside of the statements above cited from the Papal divines, as 
well as the passages we have in this section cited from Luther, 
Calvin, Chemnitz, Zanchius, Whittaker, and Sohnius, let our read- 
ers place the following passages from Dr. Hodge. Speaking of 
the analogy in Rom. v., he says : " This parallel is destroyed, the 
doctrine and argument of the apostle are overturned, if it be denied 
that the sin of Adam, as antecedent to any sin or sinfulness of our 
own, is the ground of our condemnation?^ "There is a causal 
1 See Theology, Vol. II., pp. 212, 213. 



THE THEORY AND CHURCH DOGMATIC. 



403 



relation between the sin of Adam and the condemnation and sin- 
fulness of his posterity." 1 "The loss of original righteousness, 
and death spiritual and temporal, under which they commence 
their existence, are the penalty of Adam's first sin." 2 " The sin of 
Adam did not make the condemnation of all men merely possible : 
it was the ground of their actual condemnation." 3 " His sin was 
not our sin. It is imputed to us as something not our own, a 
peccatum alienum; and the penalty of it, the forfeiture of the 
divine favor, the loss of original righteousness, and spiritual death, 
are its sad consequences." 4 Does it require any words to show 
that the doctrine thus expressed is the very doctrine asserted by 
the aforesaid Papal divines, which the Reformers refuted and re- 
jected as an utter abandonment of the doctrine of original sin ? 
And is it not perfectly apparent, therefore, that the above cited 
antagonists of the Church doctrine, — that is, the Armenians, Ock- 
ham, Erasmus, Pighius, Catharinus, and Crellius- — concur with 
Dr. Hodge, and he with them, on the leading points of this the- 
ory ? That is, that they all alike concur in affirming (1), that the 
first sin was the sin of the first man only, and not of the race; (2), 
that it was charged upon his posterity gratuitously, i. e., without 
any subjective demerit of their own; and (3), that, through this 
imputation, that one sin of the one man became the procuring 
cause of all the evils which have come upon the race? Certainly 
these things are undeniably so ; and it is equally undeniable that 
the Church has always repudiated the scheme as a pestiferous 
heresy. 

Dr. Hodge, aware that the Reformers rejected utterly the doc- 
trine of Catharinus, endeavors to discriminate between that doc- 
trine and his own theory, on the alleged ground that Catharinus 
makes " original sin to consist solely in the imputation of Adam's 
sin," 5 which notion he claims to repudiate. But we have just ex- 
plained fully the sense in which Catharinus made original sin to 
consist solely in imputation, which evinces that there is no ground 
whatever for this attempted discrimination of Dr. Hodge. And 
it may, moreover, be clearly perceived also by the extracts pre- 
sented above from his orations before the Tridentine Council, and 
in which, with much more emphasis and in more varied forms of 



1 See Theology, Vol. II., p. 215. 2 Ibid., p. 296. 3 Ibid., pp. 551, 552. 
4 Ibid., p. 225. 6 Ibid., p. 180. 



404 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



expression than are employed for the purpose of delineating his 
own views by Dr. Hodge, he repeatedly affirms that all men 
sinned in and fell with Adam in the first transgression; but, like 
Dr. Hodge, he explains this sinning as putative. He made origi- 
ginal sin to consist solely in imputation, therefore, by making the 
forensic imputation of Adam's peccatum alienum alone causal of 
the moral pollution and ruined condition of the race ; denying its 
participation in the first sin, and alleging that our depraved nature, 
or, as he names it, concupiscence, is the punishment for Adarrfs 
personal sin alone. And wherein does this representation differ 
from the expressed views of Dr. Hodge ? We would do the Doc- 
tor no injustice; but if words have a meaning his attempted dis- 
crimination is vain. The language of Catharinus expresses pre- 
cisely the theory of Dr. Hodge — the theory which the Reformers 
and the Church in every age have united to refute and to con- 
demn. 

On the same page the Doctor says : " It is also to be observed, 
that all parties in the Roman church, hefore and after the Council 
of Trent, however much they differed on other points, united in 
teaching the imputation of Adam's sin; i. <?., that for that sin the 
sentence of condemnation passed upon all men." By which state- 
ment he, of course, means that they taught the doctrine of impu- 
tation which he is defending, and not the doctrine which he rejects 
as false ; for if this be not his meaning, his language must neces- 
sarily mislead, and could have no relevancy to his argument. In 
other words, they did not inculcate the doctrine which he opposes, 
to-wit: that we virtually sinned in Adam and participated in the 
guilt of his first transgression ; but did teach that we sinned only 
putatively, and that it was Adam's personal sin alone, and not our 
sin in him or participation in his fault, which brought condemna- 
tion and death upon the race. If, then, this be the Doctor's 
meaning, it must be pronounced an unmitigated perversion of 
fact. Pelagianism has repeatedly made fearful inroads upon the 
Roman church ; 1 but she herself has never, at any period or under 
any circumstances, either received or asserted the doctrine received 
and asserted by Dr. Hodge of the gratuitous imputation of sin. 
The views of Catharinus and Pighius, and of those who coincided 
therewith in the Council, were subsequently, as we have stated, 

1 See Bradwardiu's Preface to his Be Causa Dei. (London, 1618.) 



THE THEORY AND CHUECH DOGMATIC. 



405 



repudiated as decidedly by the great body of the Papal divines as 
by the Reformers themselves. Even Bellarmin, with all his No- 
minalistic proclivities, strongly disclaimed and rejected them. 

It ought to be further stated here, in order to complete the 
foregoing narrative, that after Catharinus had spoken as narrated 
above, Dominico Soto arose in response, and in opposing his views, 
said: That the habitual quality remaining in Adam after his first 
sin, and not merely the guilt of that sin (as Catharinus has affirmed) 
passed into his posterity , arid is transferred as their own into each 
one of them. And that man is called a sinner, not only when he 
transgresses actually, but afterwards also ; not in regard to the 
punishment or other consequences of sin, but in regard to the pre- 
vailing transgression itself ; which view he very strongly urged as 
the doctrine of the church, and on which account (as the historian 
remarks) he was suspected hy some of the Council as favoring the 
heresy of Luther on the subject. And thus the gratuitous impnta- 
tionists then essayed to charge with heresy those who maintained 
the true doctrine of the Church, precisely as Dr. Hodge has at- 
tempted now. But let us briefly advert to this " heresy of Luther." 

The Council of Trent was convoked by Paul III., in 1545 ; and 
during the previous year Luther had issued from the press the 
first volume of his Commentary on Genesis, from which edition 
we have, in Section 13, B., ^N~o. 1, above (to which we refer the 
reader), quoted a passage containing his views on original sin; 
and (in another part of this § 30, likewise,) a passage adverting to 
the manner in which that doctrine was then assailed, and in which 
he - repels the assault of Erasmus, who had advanced: against it the 
theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, concerning which he 
says: "These things may be flattering to reason, but they are full 
of impiety and blasphemy!" 1 And these passages cited there- 
from, so strikingly accord with those just presented also from 
Calvin, Chemnitz, Zanchius, Sohnius, and Whittaker, as of them- 
selves to preclude the very supposition of serious doubt as to the 
views of the Reformers on this subject from the first. "The 
heresy of Luther" was, therefore, a pointed antagonism to the 
views of Catharinus and Pighius, and consequently to the theory 

1 Luther in Genesis ii. 16, 17, page 31, col. 1. (Wittenberg, 1544.) The 
reader will find in the former part of this section a translation of the whole 
passage. 



406 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of Dr. Hodge. And that the forecited extracts from Luther were 
among the passages referred to as identifying the views of Soto 
(as opposed to those of Catharinus) with "the heresy of Luther" 
will hardly be questioned. 

From the manner in which the Church has ever regarded the 
views of the Armenians (above cited), and as subsequently ex- 
pressed by the scholastic doctors referred to by Peter Lombard, 
and asserted likewise by Ockham, all of which has been plainly 
set before the reader, it would seem scarcely necessary to advert 
to the subject further. But we shall, in conclusion, briefly offer 
an instance or more of the representative theologians anterior to 
the Council of Trent. 

Anselm. (1109) taught that the state of Adam's posterity (they 
being deprived of original righteousness) was a sinful state ; and 
averred with Augustine that we inherit this condition, not only 
because Adam sinned, but because we sinned in Adam. In his 
De Concept. Virg. et Orig. Peccato, Cap. VI., for example, he 
says: "Sicut in Adamo omnes peccavimus quum ille peccavit;" 
that is, "as in Adam we all sinned when he sinned;" and not 
after he had sinned, as would be the fact if our sinning consisted 
merely in having his personal sin forensically charged to our ac- 
count. And in Cap. 20 : " Natura subsistit in personis, et per- 
sons non sunt sine natura, /k?^ natura personas infantium pec- 
catricesP And in Cap. 23 : " Quapropter cum damnatur infans 
pro peccato originali ; damnatur non pro peccato Adce sed pro 
suo." 1 Such was the Christian doctrine of his day. Nearly two 
centuries later Aquinas likewise taught the doctrine of participa- 
tion. He remarks that the Catholic doctrine is, that the first sin 
of the first man originally passes to posterity, on account of which 
even children soon after their birth are baptized — tanquam ab 
aliqvo infectione culpce abluendi;" and that all who are born 
from Adam may be regarded as one man, possessed of the same 
nature, partakers alike of its corruption and condemnation. In 
illustration of which he employs such language as the following : 
"Et simul cum natura naturae infectio. Et hoc enim fit iste qui 
nascitur consors culpse primi parentis, quod naturam ab eo sortitur 
per quamdam generativam motionem." "Ad tertiam dicendum 

1 In my copy of the Opuscula of Anselm (anno 1490) the quotations by Dr. 
Hodge are not to be found according to his references. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



40 T 



quod primum peccatum corrumpit naturam liumanam corruptione 
pertinente ad solam personam." 1 He thus taught that we all 
really and not putatively sinned in Adam ; and as a result lost, 
along with him, original righteousness, which left us, with him, 
in a corrupt and sinful state. They clearly teach our participa- 
tion in the first sin. And they are representative theologians of 
the Latin church in the interval between the time of Augustine 
and the Reformation. They neither entertain nor express a 
particle of sympathy with the views attributed to them by Dr. 
Hodge. 

Thus impossible does it appear, from any view that can be 
taken, whether theological, exegetical, or historical, to avoid the 
conclusion that Dr. Hodge's theory is an essential and fatal de- 
parture from the recognized theology of the Church; and I con- 
clude the section with the remark that the sooner the Church 
shall require the issue to be joined, in view of the actual facts in 
the case, the better will it be for herself and for all who are therein 
concerned. Our next section will conclude the argument. 

§ 31. The Theory and its Ethical Relations. 
Dr. Hodge, as we have seen, has repeatedly affirmed of the doc- 
trine, which it is the design of this treatise to re-state and defend, 
that it is fundamentally erroneous and subversive of the whole 
system of evangelical truth ; and that ethically it does not rise to 
the dignity of a contradiction, has no meaning at all, but is mere 
Pantheistic nonsense and impossible. He is, however, as sparing 
of proffered proof in support of the unscrupulous allegations as he 
has shown himself to be of discrimination in his endeavor to set 
forth what he assumes to be the true doctrine of the Church. But 
nevertheless, we entirely concur with the Doctor's averment that 
the two systems are in fundamental antagonism; and we further 
maintain that it is only through logical inconsistency that his work 
on theology retains the features it still does of the system of grace. 
"We have seen how the influence of this theory has already led him 
into a modification of the important terms guilt, imputation, jus- 
tice, and the like; and this movement is bound to proceed, is or 
can we doubt that should his scheme be accepted, in lieu of her 
doctrine, by the Church, those features are destined soon to wither 

4 

1 Summos, Prim. SecuncL Q. 82. (Paris, 1845.) 



408 



ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS TMPU T ATION . 



and perish in the iron grasp of the rigid and inexorable logic 
which must be applied to them when some competent master of 
the theme, untrammelled by a sense of religious restraint or obli- 
gation, shall adopt and carry forward to their legitimate sequences, 
this theory and its principles. 

The late Dr. Archibald Alexander, in the conclusion of his 
article cited in a previous section, has truly said : " There has never 
yet been an instance in the history of the Church, of the rejection 
of any doctrine of the gospel where the opposers of the truth have 
been contented to stop at the first step of departure from sound 
doctrine. If they who first adopt and propagate an error are 
sometimes restrained by habit, and by a lurking respect for the 
opinions of the wise and good, as also by a fear of incurring the 
censure of heresy, from going the full length which their prin- 
ciples require, yet those who follow them in their error will not 
be kept back by such considerations. Indeed, the principles of 
self-defence require that men who undertake to defend their 
opinions by argument should endeavor to be consistent with them- 
selves; and thus it commonly happens that what was originally a 
single error, soon draws after it the whole system of which it is a 
part. On this account it is incumbent on the friends of truth to 
oppose error in its commencement, and to endeavor to point out 
the consequences likely to result from its adoption ; and to us it 
appears that nothing is better calculated to shoio what tvill he the 
effect of a particular error than to trace its former progress by 
the lights of ecclesiastical history." 1 

We have seen that the dogma which teaches that God may ex- 
hibit His punitive justice against his rational creatures without 
regard to their subjective character, and even as gratuitously as 
He extends His promised mercy to the penitent, can derive no 
support from Romans v. ; and if not taught therein, it confessedly 
has no existence in the word of God. And such being the fact, 
therefore, it will not be illegitimate for us to consider and discuss 
the principle itself (as we purpose to do in the present section) in 
the light of its consequents, whether doctrinal or ethical. We 
have seen, moreover, that it is nowhere to be found (except as 
condemned) in the doctrinal symbols of any branch of the church 
of Christ; nor is it either named, or even referred to, in any of 

1 Princeton Essays, First Series, p. 127. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



409 



those which Dr. Hodge has cited (though they all recognize the 
subjective ill-desert of the race anterior to the imputation of the 
first sin) ; nor have we ever met with the writings of any recog- 
nized divine of the Calvinistic communion whose statements 
touching that theory and exegesis approximate in any degree the 
Doctor's claim on its behalf. Occasionally, a supralapsarian of 
the Protestant church, who had adopted to some extent the scho-* 
lastic philosophy aforesaid, may, perhaps, have sympathized there- 
with; but even this must be gathered rather inferentially from 
their writings than from any declarative declaration ; and the in- 
ference, moreover, they undoubtedly would have disclaimed. The 
theory, therefore, is, as we have abundantly shown, without au- 
thority, either from the word of God or from the recognized the- 
ology of the Church, and may with strict propriety be criticized 
on the ground of its consequents. 

The lack of direct exegetical support from the Bible, or of his- 
torical recognition in the approved theology, might not of them- 
selves, perhaps, constitute a sufficient refutation of the theory if 
the principle on which it rests could possibly be regarded as in- 
different ; or if it could pertain only to some issue not fundamental, 
or not seriously affecting the vital interests of ethics and religion. 
But this theory now, through Dr. Hodge, demands to be recog- 
nized as the doctrine of the Church, although, at the same time, 
and by inevitable logical sequence, it claims, as above shown, to 
revolutionize essentially the universal and abiding conception of 
the Church (and, indeed, of the moral nature of man) respecting 
Divine justice, and of every correlated doctrine of revelation ; and 
to announce as the truth of God a principle which, when consid- 
ered in the abstract, is not only thus astounding to both the moral 
and intellectual conception, but which, in its logical concrete, 
opens the floodgates to practical errors of a nature the most per- 
nicious, by furnishing a basis upon which, with a high degree of 
plausibility, they can put forth and enforce their claims, — errors, 
too, as we shall see, of the most opposite and conflicting character,, 
when viewed aside from the principle which gives them counte- 
nance. We trust that our readers are not already weary of the 
discussion, and that, in view of the condition into which our the- 
ology has been brought by the uuaccountable misapprehensions of 
Dr. Hodge, we hope they will patiently hear us to the conclusion 



410 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



of the section. The series of propositions or theses to be brought 
before them, in the somewhat unique mode of discussion which 
will characterize the present section, call for a most serious con- 
sideration; and though w r e cannot pretend to exhaust the topics 
themselves, or to say even a tithe of what might be said in rela- 
tion to each, we feel that our work ought not to be concluded 
until they shall have been, at least briefly, brought to the attention 
•of our readers, in both the logical and ethical connection which 
they sustain to the theory of Dr. Hodge, and which during half a 
century he has been more or less directly inculcating upon our 
Church and its ministry. It is not. difficult to surmise, in view of 
the forecited remarks of Dr. Alexander, what must probably be 
the ultimate end of such inculcations ; and we cannot do less than 
request that our readers will give to the whole section an earnest 
consideration. We adverted briefly to this first point in our for- 
mer essay, 1 and shall now still further pursue the train of remark 
therein suggested. 

I. We shall, in this our first sub-section, produce a few instances 
of this mutual heterogeneity, for the theory furnishes ground upon 
which, as it seems to us, either or all of the following (with many 
other equally pernicious and heterogeneous notions) may be main- 
tained : 

1. Does it not, then, in the first place, plainly imply that a por- 
tion of mankind were created to he damned- f Let us see. 

If we admit Dr. Hodge's standpoint of compulsory represen- 
tation, denying that the covenant was made with both Adam and 
his seed, and also his doctrine of the gratuitous imputation of sin, 
which is logically a corollary therefrom, let our readers ask them- 
selves whether there is any available method by which to avoid 
the conclusion that a large portion of the race were created to be 
eternally damned. The argument seems plain, and is brief, and I 
reproduce it substantially from my former essay. 2 

It would be gratifying to know how Dr. Hodge would avoid the 
necessity for acknowledging the doctrine which the principle re- 
ferred to has been regarded as logically involving, to- wit : that 
God created a large portion of mankind expressly to be damned ; 
for if his views necessarily lead to this conclusion, he is bound in 

1 See Danville Review for 1861, pp. 565-610. 

2 See Ibid, for 1862, pp. 76, 77. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS 



411 



all candor to discard them, or frankly to admit the unavoidable 
s- sequence ; and if they do not, he certainly should explain how the 
inference may be avoided. The imputation of Adam's guilt to 
Iris posterity is affirmed by the Doctor to be solely " from with- 
out," and he claims that they are as innocent of subjective ill-de- 
sert as a ground for the imputation, as the believer is of personal 
merit as a ground for the imputation of the righteousness of Chrst ; 
that is, they do not deserve subjectively the condemnation they 
suffer on account of the peccatum alienum of Adam any more than 
the elect deserve subjectively the justification they receive on ac- 
count of the obedience of Christ. And Dr. Hodge claims, more- 
over, that to deny this is to invalidate the whole doctrine of salva- 
tion through the free grace of God. Xow, the Doctor fully 
affirms the truth of the doctrine of divine predestination, and from 
these principles it therefore follows, (1), in respect to those who are 
saved from the aforesaid condemnation of the race, that God al- 
ways purposed to rescue them therefrom ; and (2), in regard to 
those who perish therein, that it was always His purpose to leave 
them thus to perish. And as the imputation of both guilt and 
righteousness is without subjective desert in either case, and de- 
pends solely on the divine will in both cases, it follows, according 
to this doctrine, that it was God's eternal purpose that the repro- 
bate should perish, without reference to their subjective desert, as 
it was His eternal purpose that the elect should be saved without 
any regard to their personal desert ; and hence a recognition of 
this scheme involves, unavoidably, the conclusion (always indig- 
nantly denied by the Church), that as God of His mere will and 
pleasure created the elect with the eternal purpose of saving them 
without regard to their subjective desert, so He created the repro- 
bate with the eternal purpose of consigning them, of His mere 
will and pleasure, without regard to their subjective desert, to end- 
less perdition. And thus our theology must now be logically 
burdened with this offensive and loathsome excresence, or the the- 
ory which involves or gives existence to it must still be promptly 
disclaimed, as it ever has been. 

2. Does not this same principle justify likewise the theory of 
restorationism f Let our readers judge. For in strange contra- 
riety to the foregoing, and as evincive of the heterogeneous nature 
of the principle itself, the Restorationists, by assuming it (as they 



412 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



do), may successfully maintain against any or all who may like- 
wise acknowledge that principle, their own position, that all man- 
kind will be ultimately restored to the favor of God ? The same 
is also true as respects the theory of the later Universalists. 

Let those in our communion, for example, who accept Dr. 
Hodge's principle of compulsory representation, that is, represen- 
tation without*. covenant with the represented r , try their hand at the 
following argument of the Restorationists, for which that principle 
supplies the basis, to-wit : a merely forensic imputation of guilt 
can neither impart nor produce subjective character or desert, 1 and 
can therefore furnish no real ground for treating its object as an 
actual sinner ; and much less can it furnish real ground for ren- 
dering him sinful, that is, for imparting to him, penally or other- 
wise, a sinful and corrupted nature. Whence, then, is the com- 
mencement of that " sinful state " which, as Dr. Hodge concedes, 
exists in our nature anterior to any self-appropriation of it by us r . 
and even to the exercise of any agency of ours ? A mere juridical 
accusation or imputation, as is conceded, does not and cannot impart 
it. The child that is just born, as Dr. Hodge affirms, has not by 
any agency of his own contracted or brought it upon himself, and 
yet it exists in him, and exists anterior to all exercise of moral 
agency. It is an effect, therefore, and consequently must have an 
adequate procuring cause. But Dr. Hodge affirms likewise that 
that cause is not in the infant himself, but is "from without," as 
it of course must be if he has in no way participated in its pro- 
duction. Now, neither the devil nor all his angels are able to 
produce it in the infant anterior to the exercise of its own moral 
agency ; and whence then does it proceed ? On the principle af- 
firmed by Dr. Hodge, therefore, it is either an effect without a 
cause, or it is traceable to the immediate divine efficiency. But 
God is universally recognized as a being of infinite goodness and 
beneficence, whose " tender mercies are over all his works ;" He 
could, of course, take no pleasure in continuing for ever a state of 
unhappiness and misery in His creatures, which He alone, with- 
out their fault or agency, has brought upon them ; and therefore,, 
since He has thus by Plis own efficient operation, and without any 

1 Dr. Hodge affirms this in the most decided manner, and cites Turrettin 
and Owen in support of it. Owen says, " To be alienee eulpee reus makes no 
man a sinner." See Princeton Essays, First Series, pp. 179, 180. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



413 



agency or concurrence of ours, brought us out of a state of inno- 
cence and into a helpless condition of sin and misery, it is certain, 
beyond all peradventure, that His design therein is perfectly com- 
patible with infinite goodness to those whom, for wise and holy 
purposes, He has thus subjected to unmerited calamity ; and con- 
sequently not only compatible with, but actually requiring their 
ultimate restoration to the state or condition of innocence and con- 
sequent happiness of which He has thus deprived them. It is in- 
finitely certain, therefore, that as He has brought us into an estate 
of sin and misery without any regard to our own agency or sub- 
jective desert, He will recover us therefrom without regard to our 
own agency or desert. 

Is there any reply to this argument if the premise be granted ? 
I see none. And if there be none, it will follow, likewise, as we 
-shall presently see, that repentance lias no place, and that im- 
penitence is no crime. 

3. Willingness to he damned for the glory of God. 

Does not the principle -furnish, likewise, a basis for the so-called 
Hopkinsian standpoint, that we ought to be willing to be damned 
for the glory of God ? 1 

I do not find that Dr. Hopkins has advanced this sentiment in 
any such style as has been charged upon him. 2 But be this as it 
may, others have advanced it ; nor could any one by whom it 
really is entertained desire a better foundation on which to rear 
the superstructure of the building than that which is afforded by 
the principle in question. The argument is plain, and the logical 
result appears to be inevitable. The following may serve for 
illustration : 

God, for his own glory, and without their subjective desert or 
agency, brought upon the posterity of Adam spiritual death and 
consequent misery. And as He has for His own glory brought 
the sinless creature into this condition by f orensically imputing to 
him a peccatum alienum, and then treating him as a sinner, and 
as it is the unquestionable duty of all creatures to submit im- 
plicitly to the will of then- Creator, so they ought not only to be 
willing to have sin thus imputed to them, but should be willing 

1 See The Contrast, by Dr. E. S. Ely, Chapter XI., note D. (Xew York, 
1811.) 

2 See "Whelpley's Triangle, page 100, seq. (Xew York, 1832.) 



414 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



also to endure or abide in that condition into which He has for 
such a purpose introduced them. But as that condition must, 
unless God in His goodness should see proper to prevent it, 
ultimate in eternal damnation, so he should be willing to abide 
therein for the glory of God ; and he would deserve to be damned 
if he were not thus willing. 

From these and similar considerations we are inclined to sup- 
pose that if the Westminster Assembly had entertained Dr. 
Hodge's doctrine, there would have been considerable additions 
to, as well as essential modifications of our doctrinal symbols. 

4. Sin and the greatest good. 

Since they who adopt the principle under discussion are cer- 
tainly at liberty to apply it in support of their views, and, as we 
have shown in our previous essay, men of the most opposite 
opinions do really thus apply it, it will not appear strange to our 
readers that the principle should furnish likewise a very broad 
basis for that pretended philosophical notion which some philoso- 
phizing theologians have, in their folly, attempted to engraft upon 
Christian theology — that God. has introduced sin into the universe 
as a means for accomplishing the greatest good. 

Dr. Hodge's theory, however, does not regard God as the author 
of Adam's sin. It merely teaches that that sin injured no one 
but Adam himself, except as it was charged upon them as a pecca- 
tum alienum ; that is, through a forensic imputation — of which 
imputation, however, God is the sole origin and author. But the 
Church theology has always affirmed against the Pelagians, that 
it injured the race, not only by being charged upon them, but 
that it was so charged or imputed because they had participated 
therein, and that it consequently descended to us from our first 
parents through propagation {per traducem.) 1 The question then 

1 Celestius was the first who wrote against the propagation of sin by gener- 
ation, and issued his work Contra Traducem Peccanti even before Pelagius had 
published his notes on Romans, and in his Confession of Faith he says: "A 
sin propagated by generation {peccatum ex traduce) is wholly contrary to the 
Catholic faith." And Pelagius, in Rom. vii. 8, says : " They are insane who^ 
teach that the sin of Adam comes on us by propagation, {per traducem) .'■ " 
Augustine, in reply, says : "That Adam's sin has been propagated among 
all men, and will always be propagated. The race are propagated by gener- 
ation, bringing original sin with them, since the vice propagates the vice," 
&c, and cites Romans v. 12 in proof. And that " it is even a necessary sin ;" 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



415 



recurs, Why did God impute to the posterity this peccatum alienum 
(as Dr. Hodge affirms it to be), and thus make the guilt of it to 
exist where, according to this scheme, it had not existed \ — for 
that He did so is, according to Dr. Hodge, not to be called in 
question. And here the aforesaid argument of the Universalist 
applies with irresistible force ; His design therein could not have 
been to make His innocent creatures ultimately miserable, but 
must have been one of pure benevolence. They had transgressed 
no law, and therefore it could not have been required in order to 
sustain law. And since it was, therefore, a matter of His mere 
will and pleasure, He need not, and consequently would not, have 
introduced it except out of regard to the ultimate weal of the 
creature. It was purely of His sovereign will, and could have 
been demanded by no necessity of His nature. Neither justice 
nor law required it, as neither had been infringed by those to 
whom the imputation was made. - And since, therefore, it was of 
His own mere pleasure, it must have been prompted by infinite 
goodness, with the view of obtaining, not for Himself ] — for there 
could be no increase of His felicity, — but for His creatures, a 
greater increase of happiness than otherwise could be secured to 
them. For since it could not possibly have been from a design to 
make any of them ultimately unhappy that He thus, of His mere 
pleasure, brought evil upon them (for it would be shameless blas- 
phemy to predicate such a supposition of a God of infinite justice, 
goodness, and love), and since it could not have been His design 
therein that they should remain in their original sinless condition, 
— for sin being imputed and punished by a penal infliction of 
moral corruption, must, as a consequence, displace them from that 
happy state, — the whole procedure can only resolve itself into an 
intention on His part to bring them into ultimate possession of a 
still higher degree of happiness than they originally possessed or 
could otherwise attain. The design, therefore, of imputing a 
peccatum alienum to the creature was to secure to it the greatest 
possible good ; and consequently, He will, without fail, accomplish 
that design in every instance. Such is the argument, and in view 
of the theory thus suggesting it, Dr. John Taylor, in his work on 



that is, the race having sinned in the first man, must continue to be sinful, 
unless redeemed. See the quotations in Wiggers, chapters 5 arid 6. 



416 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



original sin (as already stated), takes the ground that sin is a 
positive^ good. 

There are, besides the foregoing, errors, and not a few, to which 
this principle extends a kindly sympathy and support, for being in 
utter antagoriism to the character anal truth of God it holds a com- 
mon logical sympathy with all antagonisms thereto. But these 
may suffice to illustrate how baleful are the clogs and impediments 
which the introduction of this pestiferous notion into our theology 
must throw in the way of the extension and triumph of the truth ; 
clogs and impediments, moreover, which not only possess no re- 
deeming feature, but which they who introduce are powerless to 
remove, and which they, therefore, in their helpless imbecility 
will be obliged to bequeath as an inheritance and heirloom of 
.annoyance and vexation to the Church until the principle itself 
shall be utterly renounced. But we proceed to our next sub-sec- 
tion. 

II. Does not this error likewise tend by logiccd necessity to sub- 
vert the Christian conception of GocVs love toward His creatures, 
and of His desire to be loved by them ? 

Dr. Hodge represents the Most High as of His mere will and 
pleasure establishing between Adam and his posterity a certain re- 
lation called a natural and federal relation, and then as constitut- 
ing that relation the sole basis on which to regard and treat the 
posterity as real sinners, and so to inflict upon them the retribu- 
tions of His punitive justice. For example, he says: "Adam's of- 
fence, as something out of ourselves, a peccatu?n alienum, is the 
judicial ground of the condemnation of the race, of which condem- 
nation, spiritual death, or inward corruption, is the expression and 
the consequence," " To deny this, and to assert our own subjective 
character as the ground of the sentence, is not only to deny the very 
thing which the apostle asserts, but to overturn his whole argument." 
"The ground of the imputation of Adam? s sin, or the reason why 
the penalty of his sin has come upon cdl his posterity, according to 
the doctrine above stated, is the union between us and Adam." 1 

Place now in juxtaposition with this representation God's own 
words by the prophet: "For I have no pleasure in the death of 
him that dieth, saith the Lord God, wherefore turn yourselves and 

1 See Theology, Vol. II. , pp. 191-196, 551, 552, and Princeton Review for 
1860, pp. 341, 345, 346, 763, 764. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



417 



live ye;" or of our blessed Saviour, "God so loved the world that 
He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him 
should not perish, but have everlasting life ;" or these of Peter, 
"The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some men 
count slackness, but is longsuffering to usward, not willing that 
any should perish, but that all should come to repentance;" 1 and 
on comparing them with these statements of Dr. Hodge, is there 
any way of avoiding one of the two following conclusions: (1), 
That either the theory referred to is an unmitigated calumny on 
the character of God ; or (2), That He of His own mere will and 
pleasure, and without regard to their own agency or subjective 
desert, has penally placed the posterity of Adam in a condition of 
hopeless depravity and spiritual death, and then made the stupen- 
dous sacrifice — a sacrifice the most stupendous that even the 
eternal Jehovah could make — to deliver a portion of them from 
the inexpressibly dreadful condition into which He had thus of 
His mere will and pleasure plunged the whole % I repeat it as an 
inevitable conclusion from the premise, that the theory must either 
be wholly discarded as a calumny upon God, or this most intoler- 
able representation be accepted as legitimate. But I will not 
attempt to expatiate upon a concept of such a character. The 
argument is before the reader, and if the theory can be retained, 
.and the latter conclusion avoided as illegitimate, let it be shown. 
If not, then it surely is needless to insist that such a scheme is 
not the gospel, that it is no part of the doctrine of the Calvinistic 
church, and that it is wholly irreconcilable with any adequate con- 
ception of the true nature of sin, and of redeeming love. 

It is indeed true that the sinful or fallen creature can never, by 
personal character and works, expiate his transgressions or satisfy 
the requirements of justice. He has by his sin placed this beyond 
lis power, so that if saved it must be by sovereign mercy alone. 
But is this also true in relation to the unfallen or sinless creature 
as this theory represents ; that is, that God may pronounce him 
unjust, and make a purely foreign sin the ground of his condem- 
nation, and of defiling his pure and sinless nature by a penal in- 
fliction of moral corruption ? And is it futhermore true of our 
first parents themselves (as this would seem to intimate) that they, 
in their state of integrity, could not have certainly secured God's 

1 See Ezekiel xviii. 32; John iii. 16, and 2 Peter iii. 9. 
27 



418 



ORIGIN AL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



approval and favor ? 1 If so, to what purpose was the law given, 
if they could not obey it, and thus beyond question secure His 
favor and acceptance ? Otherwise the conclusion seems unavoid- 
able, that it was given in order to be violated ! But a thought so 
perfectly fiendish can surely be entertained by no Christian. Why r 
then, agreeably to this scheme was the law imparted ? and on what 
ground, moreover, did the unfallen angels obtain eternal blessed- 
ness ? For they were under the same law with our first parents, 
requiring them to love God with all the heart, and soul, and mind, 
and strength, and their fellow creature as themselves. But if the 
principle does not apply to the sinless, Dr. Hodge's theory is con- 
fessedly false; for he claims that it applies to the posterity of 
Adam, while they were, as he affirms, totally without sin or sub- 
jective ill-desert. If, however, it does apply to the sinless, then 
in what sense can it be affirmed that God loves His creatures, and 
does not desire their death, and is pleased with their service and 
devotion ? And on what ground is that love to be expressed, or 
even conceived of as existing ? He can treat His avowed enemies 
no otherwise than this theory represents Him as treating the 
posterity of Adam while yet innocent. And on what ground,, 
then, does He require that we exercise towards Him obedience 
and love, if the principle be true ; that is, if He may of His mere 
sovereign will constitute a basis (call it covenant, or what you 
please,) upon which He can thus treat them as enemies, and then, 
without their having in any way incurred His displeasure, visit 
them with punitive vengeance ? 

The whole family of God, and with no dissenting voice, have 
always joyfully acknowledged that He is to be loved, and blessed, 
and adored ; or, in other words, worshipped with praise and thanks- 
giving on account of His works and ways. Is it conceivable, 
then, that it should be a ground for thanksgiving and praise that 
any who are innocent (and consequently of His own family) should 
be, without reference to their own agency or demerit, pronounced 
unjust, and condemned to a penal infliction of moral corruption 
and spiritual death ? Is it conceivable that to the angelic hosts, 
for example, it should be a ground for gratitude and praise that He, 

1 This, let it be lorne in mind, is a conception that is not only favored by 
Dr. Hodge's theory, but by that of the supralapsarians also, and in fact by 
all whose theological speculations really necessitate the fall. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS, 



419 



of His mere will and without regard to any agency or subjective 
desert of ours, brought sin and spiritual death upon ns, and then 
left unnumbered multitudes of the race to perish in untold and 
eternal misery ? Can any serious intelligent mind, without infinite 
confusion, attempt to conjoin these ideas so as to constitute thereon 
* a basis for thanksgiving and praise ? The question is not in regard 
to the just and righteous punishment of the wicked and incorrigi- 
ble, but in regard to those who confessedly were in every respect 
subjectively innocent of all disobedience or sin. And we ask 
again, can the two ideas be intelligently conjoined? True, the 
Divine command of itself would constitute an all-sufficient ground 
for rendering praise and thanksgiving, even if unaccompanied 
with the reasons for the injunction. But in the matter before ns 
our gracious and compassionate God has condescended to announce 
the reasons for the requirement. And those reasons are not that 
He, of His own will and pleasure, brought the posterity of Adam 
into an estate of misery and death, and then delivered a portion 
therefrom ; but that we brought ourselves into this condition, and 
must have perished therein, helplessly and for ever, had not His 
infinite love and compassion interposed by a proffered deliverance. 
And hence the adoring gratitude and thanksgiving of the saints 
on earth, and the majestic choruses which reverberate through the 
courts of heaven. 

When Mandeville, a century and a half ago, published his 
,%i Faole of the BeesP and sought thereby to turn Christianity into 
ridicule, on the assumed ground that it represents God as first 
bringing, by an invincible necessity, sin and misery upon mankind, 
and then as sending His Son to suffer and die a most painful and 
ignominious death in order to deliver therefrom a portion of them, 1 
the whole Church regarded the statement as a vile and shameless 
caricature ; and amongst the replies he received from Christian 
divines, there were none who did not denounce the representation 
as a calumny upon both the word and character of God! And it 
was, moreover, freely conceded that if the Bible had contained 

1 It is half a century since I perused his argument, and, as I have had no 
opportunity to read it since, I can speak of it only from recollection. From 
numerous allusions to it which I have seen in other works, however, I feel as- 
sured that I may rely on the accuracy of the recollection as not unjust to 
Mandeville. 



420 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



such a representation of sin and redemption it could not be re- 
garded as proceeding from God as its author. His argument, in 
the main, assumed to be ethical and political ; but one great aim 
undoubtedly was to sweep Christianity out of existence, and such 
were the means by which he hoped to effect his purpose. But now 
we are informed that this, after all, is substantially the recognized 
faith of the Calvinistic church, and that God of His mere sovereign 
pleasure first provided a basis upon which He might inflict moral cor- 
ruption and spiritual death upon the sinless posterity of Adam, and 
then by inflicting it placed holiness and happiness for ever beyond 
the reach of all, except where He should see proper to interpose 
and rescue therefrom a certain portion through the sufferings and 
death of His dear Son ; and a large portion of the clergymen of 
our Church have been taught to regard this as Calvinistic theology. 
Should, then, a future Mandeville arise, and refer to Dr. Hodge's 
theology on this point as representing the acknowledged doctrine 
of our communion, and then cite him as saying, "As he (Adam) 
sinned, his posterity came into the world in a state of sin and con- 
demnation; they are by nature the children of wrath; the evils 
which they suffer are not arbitrary impositions, nor simply the 
natural consequences of his apostasy, but judicial inflictions; the 
loss of original righteousness, and death, spiritual and temporal, 
under which they commence their existence, are the penalty of 
Adam's first sin," 1 — employing the phrase Adam?s first sin as the 
Church does not employ it (see section 14 above), to signify a mere 
peccatum alienum\ and cite him as also saying that "spiritual 
death was the penal, and therefore certain, consequence of our 
condemnation for the sin of Adam;" 2 and that "the sin of Adam 
did not make the condemnation of all men merely possible : it was 
the ground of their actual condemnation;" 3 and cite also his 
denunciation and ridicule of the idea that the race could have 
participated in the first sin, or could have had any subjective guilt 
or ill-desert ; and thereupon make a new application of the Fable, 
referring to the former concessions that, if the Scriptures really 
sustain such a representation, the scheme of redemption, and con- 
sequently Christianity, could not be referred to a divine origin — 
on what ground could this new assault be met and repulsed by 
our Church ? Is it to be supposed that she would admit the repre- 
1 Theology, Vol. II., p. 96. 2 Ibid., p. 539. 3 Ibid., pp. 551, 552. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 421 

sentation, and undertake to defend it ? Or, if she should, can it 
be supposed for a moment that the Christian Church at large 
would sustain such an effort ? We think not. And we are, more- 
over, assured that there is no ground on which it could be repelled, 
except that which should now be by our whole community promptly 
assumed, to- wit: that the statement is a mere caricature of our 
doctrine, and is false ; and that the Church, so far from ever hav- 
ing recognized such a dogma, has, on the contrary, always from 
the beginning disclaimed and branded it as false. 
III. The ground for worshipping God. 

Does not this principle in like manner enervate and tend to 
abolish the true Christian conception as to the ground or reason 
for divine worship ? The thought, though briefly alluded to above, 
requires a more specific consideration. 

The sentiment so current with certain theologians of the supra- 
lapsarian school, that God is to be worshipped solely on the ground 
of His infinite perfections, as though adoration constituted the 
whole of religious worship, appears to be radically defective, and 
not in accord with His own clearly announced requirement. They 
suppose that, to be influenced therein by any regard to our own 
happiness as a result, .or as the reward, is so to introduce the ele- 
ment of self-love, or even of self-seeking, as to degrade and render 
unacceptable the whole of the proffered sacrifice. But this false 
inference is from an attempted refinement which the Scriptures 
nowhere countenance ; for not to insist, for example, on the speci- 
fications in the Lord's prayer, and that a regard to our own hap- 
piness is perfectly compatible with the sincerest service of God, 
(who requires that in our approaches to Him we believe that He 
is the re warder of all who diligently seek Him), and that, more- 
over, He Himself, by His threatenings against sin, not less than 
by His promises to His faithful servants, constantly presents to 
them this consideration, the conception, absolutely considered, is 
as erroneous as it is unfounded. The Church has always wor- 
shipped God, not merely on the ground of His natural and moral 
perfections, hut also on that of the relation vjhich He sustains to His 
creatures. Yenema, in referring to the topic, has well said : " His 
glory consists, not only in His possessing the perfections of the 
divine essence, but chiefly in His having those which have re- 
ference to His rational creatures — such as goodness and mercy. 



422 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



If, therefore, He be glorious in respect to the kindness which He 
bestows upon us, and if He is to be worshipped as a God of good- 
ness, it necessarily follows, that He is to be worshipped with a 
view to our own happiness, which is the noblest exercise and the 
brightest manifestation of His love. Scripture is very clear on 
this point. God requires to be worshipped £ as the rewarder of 
them that diligently seek Him.' (Heb. xi. 6.) ' I am,' He said to 
Abraham, ' thy exceeding great reward.' (Gen. xv. 1.) 'I said 
not unto the seed of Jacob, seek ye Me in vain.' (Isa. xlix. 19.) 
6 In the keeping of God's judgments there is great reward.' " (Ps. 
cxix. 11.) 1 

Place now alongside of this clear scriptural representation the 
following passage, already cited, in which Dr. Hodge states the 
fundamental principle of his theory not only directly, but anti- 
thetically, by means of the antagonisms which he condemns.- He 
says : " But the case is very different when we are told we must 
believe this doctrine (/. e., Dr. Baird's. affirmation of the voluntary 
apostasy of Adam's offspring previous to the original imputation), 
because otherwise God would be unjust, or when it is asserted in 
support of this theory, that the judgments of God must be founded 
on the personal merits of those whom they affect, that it is a denial 
of His moral nature, and even atheistic to say, that He can pro- 
nounce the just unjust and the unjust just, and when, still further, 
it is asserted that community in a propagated nature involves all 
those to whom that nature belongs in the criminality and pollu- 
tion of their progenitor. Then vie say the whole gospel is de- 
stroyed, and every scriptural ground of salvation of sinners is re- 
moved '." 2 

•Such are his statements. And now let the points on which 
there could be no dispute be separated from this enumeration (for 
they have no title to be included in a statement of actual issues.) 
They are, (1), "Personal merits," as pertaining to believers in 
Jesus; (2), u Pronouncing the unjust just," as pertaining to the 
justification of the ungodly through Jesus; and (3), A pronouncing 
the just unjust as pertaining to our surety ; neither of which, as 
Dr. Hodge certainly knew, was involved in the issue between 

1 Institutes of Theology, Vol. I., pp. 23, 24. (Andover, Mass. 1853.) 
- Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 763, 764. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



423 



liim and Dr. Baird, there being a perfect and entire agreement 
upon each of these points. Their introduction into the argument 
was therefore uncalled for, and could serve only to perplex the 
question. And being omitted, we have here the broad avowal, (1), 
That the judgments of God are not founded on the personal merits 
of those whom, they affect ; (2), That He can pronounce the just 
unjust; and (3), That character and works are not the only legiti- 
mate ground of judgment. This, of course, is only an exposition 
of the dogma of gratuitous imputation in some of its numerous 
and repulsive aspects. And, as thus explained, let our readers 
consider it in its obvious relations to the service of God, and de- 
termine for themselves whether there is a single enjoined duty 
which is not enervated by such a representation of the divine char- 
acter. If He may, of His own sovereign prerogative, and without 
regard to character or subjective desert, constitute a basis on which 
to pronounce the innocent guilty and then treat them accordingly, 
how may His worshippers be assured that even the highest de- 
gree of true consecration to His service will meet His acceptance, 
or secure their felicity ? Such a conception places the divine 
character entirely apart from His moral nature, and renders it 
solely dependent upon His will ; and thus the whole relation of 
goodness and mercy which God sustains to His creatures, and in 
view of which, not less than on the ground of His infinite perfec- 
tions. He is to be worshipped and adored, is so far implicated by 
the theory that it becomes practically problematical as to its exhi- 
bition, not only towards the repenting sinner, but even towards 
His own acknowledged children. 

IV. Does not litis principle in like manner also logically subvert 
the whole Christian conception of the olivine justice and holiness f 
^We think it does. But let us consider the matter. 

The Church view of divine justice, and its relation to sin or 
moral evil, have been presented in our Section 10, above. The 
definition of the term, as offered by Dr. Hodge, having been shaped 
by the exigencies of his theory, is radically defective, and we had 
designed to make it and its correlations the subject of a serjarate 
section; but regard to our limits has compelled us to omit this, 
with other matters of interest to the general theme. Still, how- 
ever, if that point had been treated by us it could only be referred 
to here, for it is the fundamental principle of his theory that is 



424 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



now before ns, and not the inquiry whether his definition of divine 
justice is admissible. 

There is no point in the recognized theology of the Church more 
clearly apparent from the very first, and in the entire development, 
of that theology, than her earnest, rigid, unwavering, and zealous 
determination to exclude utterly from the divine causality, and to 
affirm as appertaining to the creature alone the real and entire 
authorship or origination of sin. She has ever felt and affirmed 
that any tampering with the boundary which, on the one hand, 
excludes all causal divine efficiency in its production, and on the 
other limits its authorship solely to the creature, must in the 
result enervate and practically abolish all ground for repentance,, 
and tend likewise to deprive our blessed Redeemer of the glory 
due to His love as exhibited in the redemption of our race ; for 
how should a rational creature repent of being in a condition into* 
which, and aside from his own agency or ill-desert, a God of in- 
finite wisdom, holiness, and goodness had introduced him? And 
how should glory redound to God merely from delivering a por- 
tion of our race out of a condition of helpless ruin and misery, into 
which, and while unstained by sin, His sovereign pleasure had 
efficiently consigned the whole ? The doctrine of Pelagius was 
rejected because it excluded our participation in the first sin ; that 
is, in the procuring causes which entailed upon the race an inheri- 
tance of ruin and misery antecedent to their asserted " imitation of 
the first transgression." 1 And in later times the supralapsarian 
scheme was discountenanced and rejected by the Church because it 
did, by clear imputation (though its supporters disclaimed the infer- 
ence), introduce the divine causality into the production of the 
sin and fall of our first parents, and thus tended necessarily to re- 

1 It shouhd be borne in mind, however, that subsequent to the Synod of Di- 
ospolis Pelagius condemned the proposition of his disciple Cselestius, that the 
sin of Adam injured himself only, and not his posterity, and affirmed that 
Adam did injure his posterity, inasmuch as he gave them the first example 
of sin ; and as is further apparent from the fact that new-born infants are so 
far in a different condition from that of Adam before his transgression that 
they cannot now perform what is commanded, though he could, and cannot yet 
use that free, intelligent will without which no command could be given to 
Adam. Br. Hodge's theory will admit of no injury done to posterity except 
through a forensic imputation. (See the quotations and references in Chap- 
ter V. of Wigger's Augustinism and Pelagianism.) 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



425 



lieve the conscience of the sinner from a sense of responsibility for 
his corruption and misery, and proportionally to lessen the adoring 
gratitude due to God for redeeming grace. And for precisely the 
same reason she has always discarded the theory that the imputa- 
tion of Adam's personal guilt (the peccatum alienum) to his pos- 
terity is the sole procuring cause of their ruin and spiritual death ; 
and, on the contrary, has unflinchingly maintained, against all the 
assaults, cavils, and sneers of the Pelagian and Socinian schools, 
the existence in the offspring of Adam themselves of a just moral 
basis for the imputation of his sin to them, as recognized by the 
fact that they were implicated therein, and so became partakers of 
his guilt and criminality. 1 Her constant disclaimer of all such 
errors was, that surely the reconciliation and forgiveness proffered 
to the race through redemption, presupposes the existence of a 
state or condition in reference to all, into which He who offers this 
boon has not causally, and irrespective of their own agency and de- 
sert, introduced them ; a state of alienation from the sole source of 
light, for which the race alone is responsible. And certainly this 
is so. Why the bare attempt to conceive, as a concrete fact, the 
contrary idea must utterly confuse and confound every conception 
in regard to what His word makes known of His wisdom, and jus- 
tice, and holiness ; for how could it be conceived, in consistency 
with those perfections, that He (while we were free from sin and 
subjective ill-desert) should efficiently place us in a state of aliena- 
tion, which must inevitably result in our moral corruption and 
enmity to Him, and then, after providing a redemption therefrom 
through the stupendous sacrifice of His own dear Son, insist on 
our accepting the deliverance, and inflict an increase of actual 
misery upon those who still prefer to continue in the estate into 
which He had previously placed them ? Can the moral and rational 
nature w T ith which man is endowed acquiesce in a representation 
like this without a hopeless subversion of all its native convictions 
or conceptions of equity and holiness as pertaining to the divine 

1 Augustine could always say, and even in respect to our physical condition, 
that man is " corrupted by his own vice," or " by the vice by which he vol- 
untarily fell, (vitio quo voluntate prolapsus est." — De Pec. Mer. II., 4.) And 
in his Be Civitate, " Because, according to the greatness of the guilt, the con- 
demnation changed nature into a worse, so that what had been inflicted penally 
upon the first transgressors followed naturally to them born afterwards (etiam 
naturalitur sequeretur in nascentibus ceteris "). (Lib. XIII., cap. 3.) 



426 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



character ? or, at least, without as hopelessly disturbing and dis- 
ordering them, as it would our intellectual faculties, by being re- 
quired, under the penalty of eternal damnation, to assent to the 
proposition as a truth, that the three angles of any triangle are 
equal to the six angles of a hexagon ? Can any analogy of such a 
procedure be found within the whole compass of either the word 
or the works of God ? Has any analogous event ever occurred 
under the rule of earth's despots which has failed to elicit from 
the moral convictions of mankind the most decided and unmeasured 
condemnation ? And is it therefore strange that the Church of 
God has always disclaimed a principle which, fairly interpreted 
and logically applied, involves such a conception of the Father of 
mercies, and of His work of redeeming love ? — a work the con- 
templation of which calls forth perpetually the admiring and 
adoring praises of all the hosts of heaven. Can it be imagined, 
moreover, that the praises which those pre-eminent and glorious 
intelligences pour forth in seven-fold hallelujahs before the throne, 
are inspired by the conception that the great Creator of all things 
first introduced causally and efficiently His innocent and depen- 
dent creatures into an inevitable and helpless condition of sin and 
misery, and then delivered a portion of them out of it, and left the 
remainder to abide therein for ever \ No ! and a thousand times 
no ! The angelic hosts well know that our race is truly, and not 
fictitiously, guilty of self-ruin and self- alienation from the fountain 
of all life and goodness. They know that it was not a putative, 
but real and actual guilt on the part of the creature, that is the 
ground of that alienation, from which the stupendous mercy of 
God could alone have brought deliverance. And it is in view of 
this delivering love that those choral symphonies awaken, which 
can find their full utterance only in the idioms of heaven. The 
contrary conception, therefore, would not only hopelessly subvert 
the Christian view of the justice and holiness of God, but the view 
entertained by all the glorious array who dwell amid the splendors 
which are perpetually radiating from the eternal throne. 

Y. Is not the principle referred to destructive also of human 
accountability f Let us see. 

The Scriptures in every form of expression directly affirm our 
accountability to God for all our thoughts, words and actions; and 
assure us that " every one of us must give account of himself to 



THE THEORY AXD ITS ETHICS. 



427 



God ;" and that at the day of final account we shall " receive ac- 
cording to the deeds done in the body." The whole representa- 
tion proceeds upon a. moral basis, the validity of which is every- 
where recognized by the human conscience, (2 Cor. iv. 3.) Nor 
is anything more obvious than the fact that, could we trace to 
something " out of ourselves," and beyond our avoidance and con- 
trol, the causal origin of that moral status which leads us per- 
petually and inevitably to sin, — that is, could we trace to the 
divine efficiency, irrespective of our independent appropriation of 
it as a disturbing, polluting influence, — the whole sense of our re- 
sponsibility for sin, and, consequently, of our accountability for 
evil actions and habits, would be so modified as to be substantially 
destroyed. Do not our intuitions and the settled convictions of 
our moral nature assure us, and do not the practical judgments of 
all men acquiesce in the assurance, that if, without our agency, we 
have been efficiently placed in this evil condition, from which we, 
of ourselves, have no escape, and in which we must inevitably con- 
tinue to sin, we are not responsible for being in that condition? 
And much less are we responsible if it were God who, in His wise 
and holy providence, has effectually placed us therein ? If such, 
then, are really the facts in the case, may not the inquirer reason 
thus with himself, and say : It must follow that no announcement 
that I am responsible for being in this evil condition (i. g., under 
guilt and in a state of unavoidable sin) can induce a conscious 
recognition of it as a practical truth, since, if God brought me 
efficiently into it, I am in no sense responsible for being therein. 
Surely I am not to suppose that He, a good and righteous God, 
would ever consent to employ that fiendish power which would 
efficiently place me helplessly in such a condition, and then hold 
me responsible for being therein, — impute to me a guilt wholly 
foreign from me, and so leave me under conditions wherein I can 
do nothing but become more and more vile, and then, in dis- 
pleasure, abandon me to the unavoidable and interminable con- 
sequences of an inherent corruption thus judicially inflicted ! For 
though they tell me that I am offered deliverance therefrom if I 
repent — of what is it that I am to repent ? And what is the basis 
for repentance ? 

"God, by charging to my account a peccatum alienum, has 
brought this guilt, with its consequences, upon me, when, as Dr. 



428 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Hodge assures me, I had no guilt of my own. Hence the origin 
of the "so-called evil" must be traced to Him and not to me.. 
And, consequently, it cannot really be evil after all, since evil 
cannot dwell with Him. I find the pure, innocent nature with 
which He originally endowed me infected with this thing called 
"moral evil;" and infected thus by the sovereign pleasure of God 
alone, irrespective of my own will or agency ; and how, then, am 
I to look upon myself as damnable, either on that account or for 
having acted agreeably thereto ? My moral nature, my intuitions, 
all assure me that I cannot be justly responsible in such a case. 
And I know that God is as just as He is good. And these in- 
tuitions are as definite and as strong as any asserted evidence of 
the divinity of a revelation, which, they -tell me, declares that I 
am responsible, and that as such I must give account for being in 
this condition." 

Thus this doctrine, if entertained and allowed what appears to 
be its legitimate scope and influence, must tend necessarily to 
neutralize all those convictions of our moral nature which awaken 
within us the assurance that we are guilty for being in a condition 
of alienation from God. And if the doctrine itself is admitted, 
on what ground can such ratiocination as the aforesaid be contra- 
vened ? or, at least, so far enervated as to lead the conscience to 
recognize our responsibility for being, through God's own efficient 
operation, in an unavoidably evil and sinful state ? If there be 
any such ground, without the abandonment of the premise affirmed 
by Dr. Hodge, let it be produced. But if there be no such 
ground, then it is confessedly apparent that this theory destroys 
the whole basis of moral accountability, and is, therefore, essen- 
tially and eternally antagonistic to the truth of God. 

YL Is it not equally appare?it, on the same ground, that this 
theory must likewise abolish every practicable basis for the exercise 
of repentance of sin towards God? Let us see. The thought, 
though suggested above, requires to be particularly considered. 

One or more modern divines of Germany, in treating of free 
will, have returned substantially to the position of Seneca and 
others (noticed in our former essay), who deny its real and ab 
initio existence, on the ground that God would not have bestowed 
upon the creature a power so injurious to them as such a bestow- 
ment must necessarily prove. And they endeavor to reconcile a. 



\ 



THE THEORY AXD ITS ETHICS. 



429 



consciousness of guilt and enjoined repentance with the notion 
that evil itself and all things else are necessarily ordered. To what 
extent such a conception is likewise involved in the theory of Dr. 
Hodge, we leave it with our readers to determine. I3ut the at- 
tempt to reconcile the conception itself with the duty of repent- 
ance, as required by God in His word and recognized by our own 
moral nature, must be regarded as simply preposterous. 

" How," asks the inquirer, " am I to repent of that which a God 
of infinite goodness, and whilst I was in a state of innocence, has 
ordered on my account by imputing to me a peccatum alienum? 
If He has ordered it, how should He require of me repentance? 
If He has not ordered it, why teach me that He has? 

"And theu further: If He, in His infinite goodness, and of 
His mere sovereign will and pleasure, has efficiently placed me in 
.a condition in wliich I inevitably both suffer and do evil, on what 
ground should I be thereat distressed ? Would it not be impiety 
in me to be anxiously concerned about a condition into which He 
has brought me, without any ill-desert or voluntary agency of my 
own ? Am I to call in question His ineffable love and goodness ? 
Is not the mile quod vult Deus the very highest attainment of the 
Christian life? Can I doubt, then, that it is my duty to keep 
quiet as God thus leads me on ? — rejoicing in and yielding to every 
requirement of good, but looking upon the past without reproach 
.and without repentance, as having been ordered by a good and 
holy God ? Such is the argument. And the principle being ad- 
mitted that God gratuitously imputed a peccatum alienum to the 
sinless creature, what ground remains upon which that argument 
can be set aside ? None that is at all available. And thus, not 
only is the necessity for repentance hopelessly enervated, but the 
actual need of regeneration, and of redemption through Jesus, is 
set aside. 

But further. A merely forensic imputation of sin cannot pro- 
duce a conviction or consciousness of personal guilt, and without 
such consciousness or conviction any genuine or evangelical re- 
pentance for the sin charged is clearly out of the question. But, 
says Dr. Hodge, we are not required to repent of the peccatum 
alienum of Adam which is imputed to us, for such repentance is 
impossible. Very well. But of what, then, are we to repent? 
Are we to repent of its penalty? — the moral corruption or spirit- 



430 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



ual death penally inflicted on account of that forensically imputed 
sin ? and which, as he likewise affirms, takes full effect upon us 
"before the commencement of our moral agency ? Are we to re- 
pent of this ? If so, on what ground ? Surely, to repent of the 
latter is as far beyond the range of possibility as to repent of the 
former. For how can a man repent on account of having been 
innocently punished ? And if it be alike impossible to repent of 
these, where, or on what ground, shall repentance begin 1 Is it 
of our thoughts, words, and actions ? — all of which are impure and 
unholy, as proceeding from this "sinful state"? If so, on what 
foundation is to be based our repentance for their sinfulness ?' 
Are they not unavoidably sinful ? Dr. Hodge affirms that they 
are. And on what conceivable ground, therefore, can repentance 
be exercised in relation to them ? It is plainly impossible. And 
if their expiation be demanded of us, we can view the requirement 
only as a calamity beyond our control. And this, of course, de- 
stroys all rational foundation for either contrition or repentance. 

True, it is not necessary, in order to a basis for legitimate re- 
pentance, that one should be conscious of guilt at the time, or in 
the process of contracting it ; for, as Muller has truly remarked, 
u the existence of guilt is not at all dependent upon its being re- 
cognized in the conscience of the sinful individual." 1 How many, 
for example, allow themselves to be governed by motives of self- 
seeking, and never even imagine that they have sinned in so doing 
until conscience is subsequently awakened by the Spirit of God % 
But there is a vast difference between this and the case before 
mentioned; for, in the latter, ignorance or inattention may have 
led into the error; but in the former there is, according to Dr. 
Hodge, directly revealed, and, of course, positive knowledge, that 
the sin forensically charged upon me, and under which accusation 
I have unavoidably become corrupt, is a peccatum alienum in 
every sense of the term, and in no sense my own. In such a case,, 
therefore, it is in the very nature of things impossible that any 
arousing of a man's conscience should induce him to regard such 
a sin and its inevitable results as his own, or as that which he 
should acknowledge as his own, or of which he should repent. In 
fact, the more his conscience should become awakened and enlight- 
ened to understand 'God's truth, the more clearly must he, accord- 
1 See Christian Doctrine of Sin, Vol. I., p. 223. 



THE THEORY AXD ITS ETHICS. 



131 



ing to this theory, perceive that it is not his own. What, then, 
becomes of the doctrine and duty of repentance ? For how should 
he repent of that which he could in no sense avoid ? A thousand 
forensic accusations against a man could not make him feel re- 
morse, or self-reproach, or compunction for a crime of which he 
was in no way guilty. He might experience regret and mortifi- 
cation on account of such charges ; but to feel compunction for an 
accusation which is false, and to repent of a crime thus charged, 
is clearly out of the question. 

How, then, on Dr. Hodge's theory, does the matter stand in 
relation to forensically imputed sin ? He maintains that our re- 
pentance of the j?eccatum alienum is an impossibility, 1 (as of 
course it is) ; and that we have not brought its guilt upon our- 
selves, and can have no consciousness of having brought it upon 
ourselves. He affirms, moreover, that we are punished for it, 
and that that punishment is itself moral pollution or spiritual 
death. Kow, if all this be so, it follows that, while we may sadly 
deplore such a state of things as pertaining to ourselves and the 
race, we can regard it only in the light of calamity. The pun- 
ishment of the forensically imputed sin, says Dr. Hodge, corrupts 
and pollutes our nature even before voluntary agency commences, 
and leaves us no possible choice but to sin. And what is this but 
an awful and unavoidable calamity I And thus this theory prac- 
tically ignores criminality in our native depravity or corruption 
by making it the punishment for a sin which is in no sense our 
own. 

In every way, therefore, that the subject can be viewed, this 
theory necessarily annuls a sense of responsibility for sin, and, 
consequently, destroys the basis for all true repentance. For, ac- 
cording to the scheme, what is there to be repented of ? Tell the 
sinner that God penally and efficiently brought him out of his 
original condition of innocence into his present depraved and 
ruined condition merely as the punishment of another's sin, and 
of what is he to repent ? But, on the contrary, assure him that 
this imputed sin is his ovm ; that God declares it to he so ; and 
that he himself ] and not God, is its author ; and that the same is 
true of all his sin. Assure him of this, and even though his con- 
science may fail to accuse him, on the ground of self -conscious 
1 See Princeton Essays, First Series, page 137. 



432 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



perpetration, either of the original transgression or of ten thousand 
subsequent sins, and though he may be wholly unable to retrace 
in his own consciousness the basis or ground of the conviction, 
there yet is left, on the ground of the Divine assurance that he is 
the sole author of his sin and of its consequences, a true basis for 
repentance. And an awakened conscience never fails to verify 
the Divine representation. Analogous illustrations are innumer- 
able ; as, for example, with men who, when in a state of intoxica- 
tion, had perpetrated crimes, and are, on adequate evidence, con- 
vinced of their guilt, though they have no recollection of having 
contracted it. Yet, in virtue of the evidence which has both con- 
victed and convinced them, conscience, though unable to trace out 
:and verify the fact by its own knowledge or recollection, becomes 
aroused, and awakens compunction and remorse, and the accused 
exercise the deepest repentance on account of it, — wishing to undo 
the crime, and earnestly seeking forgiveness. The case is a plain 
one, nor is there any need to call upon philosophy to furnish the 
solution. In virtue of the evidence adduced, conviction awakens, 
and remorse is felt and repentance exercised in reference to a 
<irime of which the perpetrator has no recollection. How much 
more, then, may he feel and recognize his guilt and criminality as 
the author of his own sad and evil condition when God Himself 
furnishes the testimony against him ! 

But now, for a moment, let us suppose that the persons referred 
to in the illustration had been arrested and imprisoned for the 
alleged offence. Could they, in view of any efforts which might 
be made to fasten the crime upon them, possibly feel remorse for 
it, and exercise repentance, and seek forgiveness, if they were as- 
sured on sufficient grounds that the crime of another had been 
forensically imputed to them, and that in consequence of that ac- 
cusation they, by some cruel deception practised upon them, but 
without their knowledge or concurrence therein, had been made 
drunk, and that during the insanity induced by that drunkenness 
had perpetrated the offence charged upon them ? Would there 
exist here any possible ground for remorse or repentance on ac- 
count of it ? 

And then, finally : If God should condemn or punish a creature 
for not repenting of that condition in which He, by a mere act of 
sovereign prerogative, had efficaciously placed him, lie zuould, as 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



433 



Dr. Julius Muller justly remarks, condemn His own work; which 
it were infamous blasphemy even to suppose ! JSTor can it in any- 
wise relieve the case to suppose even fifty, or any number of in- 
tervening links of transition between the one and the other, if no 
•one of them is invested with an independent causality ; for in that 
case they all depend upon God as the first cause. For Him to 
thrust a guiltless creature out of favor, and then, through the in- 
fliction of a penal sentence clothe him efficiently with guilt and 
pollution, could it in any way take the causality of that guilt and 
pollution out of His hands for Him to endow that creature in the 
highest degree with all the faculties which, in other circumstances, 
•constitute voluntary agency and moral obligation? He has ef- 
ficiently placed His innocent creature in a condition wherein he 
can do nothing but sin, and to condemn him for sinning, or for 
not repenting of the condition in which he finds himself thus 
placed, would therefore be to condemn His own work, agreeably to 
the universally conceded maxim: Causa causce, est etiam causa 
causati. And, consequently, as the theory of the gratuitous im- 
putation of sin legitimately and fairly involves this conclusion, that 
theory is false, and can constitute no part of the theology of the 
Calvinistic church. 

VII. Another interesting and most important inquiry is, Does 
not this same theory constitute redemption a work of justice in- 
stead of grace and mercy? Let us examine this. 

Dr. John Taylor, in his aforesaid assault upon the doctrine of 
original sin, assumes (as we have seen) the position taken by Dr. 
Hodge in relation to the non-participation of the posterity in 
Adam's guilt. He, moreover, says: "The threatening, Gen. ii. 
16, 17, Thou shall surely die, is addressed to Adam personally, 
■and therefore the assembly of divines, sensible that nothing can 
be concluded from thence with regard to Adam's posterity, direct 
us to gather the full sense of it from Rom. v. 12-20, and 1 Cor. 
xv. 22. But from these passages we cannot gather that all man- 
kind sinned in Adam (if we understand sinned as distinguished 
from suffering ; and so the assembly of divines here understand 
it) ; for the apostle strongly argues, that it was the offence of one ; 
i. e., of Adam alone, considered apart from all other men, which 
brought death into the world. Consequently to say all mankind 
sinned in Adam, is not only to say what the apostle doth not say, 
28 



434: 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



but to say what he expressly contradicts. For had all mankind 
sinned in Adam when he sinned, then that offence would not have 
been the offence of oute, but of millions." 1 

Edwards, in his remarks on the general subject, and amongst 
other things which apply equally to the theory of Dr. Hodge,, 
says: "He (Dr. T.) often calls this condemnation & judicial act,. 
and a sentence of condemnation. But according to his scheme, it 
is a judicial sentence of condemnation passed upon them who are 
perfectly innocent — and viewed by the judge, even in passing the- 
condemnatory scheme, as having no guilt of sin, or any fault at all 
chargeable upon them — and a judicial proceeding passing sentence 
arbitrarily, without any law or rule, of right before established 
for there was no preceding law threatening death, that he or any 
one else pretended to have been established, but only this, In the 
day thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die. And concerning 
this he insists that there is not a word said in it of Adam's pos- 
terity." 2 But in adverting to the features of the scheme im- 
mediately before us, Edwards, on the previous page, shows that 
it involves the consequence stated in the title of this sub-section 
of our argument, and says : " But it follows from his doctrine, 
that there is no grace at all in this benefit (i. <?., of redemption 
through Christ), and it is no more than a mere act of justice, being 
only a removing of what mankind suffer, being innocent. Death, 
as it commonly comes on mankind, and even our infants (as has 
been ' observed), is an extreme positive calamity, to bring which 
on the perfectly innocent, unremedied, and without anything to 
countervail it, we are sufficiently taught, is not consistent with the 
righteousness of the Judge of all the earth. "What grace, there- 
fore, worthy of being so celebrated, would there be in affording 
remedy and relief, after there had been brought on innocent man- 
kind that which is (as Dr. T. himself represents) the dreadful and 
universal destruction of their nature, being a striking demonstration 
how infinitely hateful sin is to God ! What grace, in delivering from 
such shocking ruin, them who did not deserve the least calamity." 
This is certainly conclusive. And these questions being as perti- 
nent to the theory of Dr. Hodge as to that of Dr. Taylor, can 
leave little or no doubt as to their identity. And our readers may 
therefore determine for themselves whether Dr. Hodge has gone 

1 Original Sin, pp. 94, 95. 2 Edwards' Works, Vol. II., p. 483. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



435 



over to Dr. Taylor, or whether Edwards was wrong in opposing 
him. 

If guilt, with its penal consequences, is to be regarded as im- 
posed upon the posterity of Adam, not on account of their sub- 
jective demerit, but simply in the exercise of God's sovereign 
pleasure, then certainly it is not only conceivable, but apparent, 
on principles of equity and righteousness, that justice should in- 
terpose for its removal; but that there should be, in the proper 
sense of thpse terms, grace and mercy in such interposition, is as 
absurd a supposition as that a man who having, without reason, 
cast another into a pool of water, wherein he must perish if unas- 
sisted, would justly lay the sufferer under obligation to his kind- 
ness and humanity by helping him out. Justice would demand 
it, and his performance of the requirement could be in no sense 
regarded as an act of grace or unmerited kindness, though his 
neglect to do it would indeed be a heinous crime. And if, then, 
our redemption through Christ be, as the word of God every- 
where declares, a work of grace and mercy, contrary to our actual 
deserving, and to which we had no claim nor title whatever, then 
nothing can be clearer than that our own subjective demerit has 
brought us into the condition of forfeiture of the divine favor. 
" The divine judgment necessarily presupposes the existence of a 
causality of relative independency, otherwise it could produce no- 
thing which was an object of divine judgment." 1 And such is the 
view of redeeming love and mercy which is realized by every sin- 
cere penitent, and the view which the Church in every age has 
entertained. 

If, then, what Dr. Hodge affirms could be admitted, that guilt, 
with its accompanying misery and death, has come upon the race 
for a pecccitum alienum, with which they are in no way morally 
or subjectively connected, or, in other words, through the sov- 
ereign pleasure of God alone, for the accomplishment of some wise 
and holy purpose, nothing can be clearer than that He who has 
the highest regard for the real welfare of those who transgress 
not his requirements, would, when that purpose has been accom- 
plished, deliver them from the infliction, and that, agreeably to 
His own word and perfections, it would be unjust not to deliver 
them ; and if so, the redemption of our race is purely a work of 
1 Midler, ut supra, Vol. I., page 2G1. 



436 



OEIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



justice, and not of mercy. But inasmuch as such a conception (as 
stated above) reverses the whole doctrine of the Scriptures on the 
subject, it is, and necessarily must be, false. In such a case for- 
giveness could have no relevancy, for there could be nothing to 
forgive ; and to speak of God as pardoning His innocent creatures 
for having inflicted upon them a calamity would be unmeaning 
and absurd. And then, as to expiation through our blessed Re- 
deemer, what has He expiated according to this theory ? Man 
was simply in the condition in which the Creator had efficiently 
placed him, and what expiation could be required for his deliver- 
ance ? It were not expiation that in such a case would be needed 
for deliverance, but power exercised according to the principles of 
justice. The very fact, therefore, that an expiatory atoning sacri- 
fice was required in order that the race might be reclaimed from 
its ruined condition and restored to its lost innocency, evinces that 
God had not, either penally or otherwise, brought the guiltless 
posterity of Adam (as Dr. Hodge claims them to be) into a condi- 
tion of misery and spiritual death, and consequently that the dogma 
of the gratuitous imputation of sin is not only false, but a baseless 
calumny upon the holy and righteous character of our great and 
glorious Creator. 

YIII. But, not to dwell upon the many other particulars which 
suggest themselves in the connection, we shall conclude the discus- 
sion with the following inquiry, which, though in part anticipated 
already, needs to be thoroughly considered, to-wit : Does not this 
theory constitute God the author of sin as it exists in the posterity 
of Adam f 

Dr. Hodge alleges that the sin of our first parents, as respects 
its criminality and the injury thereby done to human nature, was 
confined to themselves alone, and produced the existing evil effects 
upon the race only through the sovereign will of God imputing it 
to us as apeccatum alienum. 

The charge that God is the efficient author of the sin of Adam, 
and consequently of that of the race, has often been brought 
against the doctrine of the Reformed church by ignorance or 
malevolence, or both, but has always been successfully repelled 
by those who truly held her theology. The supralapsarians did 
give reason for the charge, and never could, while retaining their 
theory, free themselves from the imputation logically ; while the 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



437 



Socinians and Remonstrants, etc., who held the gratuitous or 
merely forensic imputation of the first sin to the race, deemed it 
useless to deny the accusation ; while some of them, therefore, 
met it by insisting that sin was not really an evil, but an actual 
good, others, who could not accept this, denied their position. 
Let us, then, note how Dr. Hodge himself would repel it, and at 
the same time retain his theory. And we shall consider the ques- 
tion from several of those salient points of view from which the 
whole field may be easily surveyed. They are, 1, Hitman person- 
ality ; 2, The original sentence ; 3, The transmission of sin ; 4, 
The demands of justice ; and 5, The origin of sin in the posterity 
of Adam. 

1. Human Personality. 

The relation of this topic to the subject of our discussion is 
most intimate, and, though briefly touched upon in a previous sec- 
tion, a fuller consideration of it is here required before concluding 
the work ; for so much is said and insisted thereon by Dr. Hodge, 
in the effort to give plausibility to his theory, that it would be 
unpardonable to conclude the discussion without showing that his 
attempted issues with the Church doctrine on this point originate 
in an imperfect, and consequently inaccurate, conception of the 
subject. And his object seems to be to show, from this point, that 
the Church doctrine, not less than his own scheme, must be liable 
to the charge ; and so to silence the impugners of his theory on 
the subject of the Divine efficiency in the production of sin. He 
has made his views of it the basis of considerable ratiocination 
against, as well as denunciation of, the Church doctrine of oar 
guilt in the first sin; and it will be in place, therefore, to show, if 
but briefly, that there is no ground for this, and that, unlike his 
theory, that doctrine in no sense involves the necessity for attri- 
buting to the Divine efficiency, either penally or otherwise, the 
causal production of moral evil as existing in the posterity of 
Adam. 

Personality has been defined as " individuality existing in itself, 
but with a nature as its ground." 1 And the constituent elements 
of what might, in the absence of a more fitting expression, be 
termed a full or developed personality, are self -consciousness and 

1 Coleridge. Notes on English Divines, Vol. I., p. 43. 



438 i ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

self-determination ; self in the former conditioning the latter ; for 
the latter could have no relation to personality in development 
unless it were a self-conscious determination. Can, then, person- 
ality itself exist under any other conditions ? That is, can it exist 
really in a state or condition of incomplete development? or are 
self-consciousness and self-determination alike and absolutely es- 
sential to its existence in every condition in which it is possible 
for such existence to be truly predicated 1 Dr. Hodge affirms that 
they are, and attempts to treat with derision the concept that it 
could possibly be otherwise ; and yet, in a multitude of instances, 
teaches, by the clearest implication, the exact contrary (as we shall 
show in the course of the argument), and seems to suppose that 
every characteristic tendency and potentiality of personality must 
be at all times efficaciously active in order that its existence may 
be known or verified. Is this, then, really so ? Certainly the de- 
finitions above cited do not require it, nor is it sustained by true 
philosophy. But let us view this his assumption in the light of a 
few conceded facts. 

Infants, from the beginning of their existence, have been always 
and everywhere indisputably ranked in the category of persons ; 
and the same is true of individuals whose moral and intellectual 
powers have failed into hopeless idiocy ; so that wilfully to deprive 
either of life is, by both human and divine law, accounted murder 
in the strict sense of the word ; and it is now too late, therefore, 
to eject them from the category, in order to subseiwe the exigen- 
cies of any philosophical theory; for the character is recognized 
as theirs in law, in ethics, and in the word of God, and the uni- 
versal consciousness or intuition of mankind justifies and demands 
the recognition. Is, then, the conceded personality of the newly- 
born infant, or of the individual when lapsed into idiocy, a full 
or developed personality ? Does either human or divine law, or 
ethics, or theology, or human consciousness regard it as such? 
There is, beyond reasonable question, an existing personality, as 
conceded in the recognition referred to. But however that may 
stand in its secret and to us unknown relation to the Giver of life 
and being, it is in the relation which its subject sustains to his 
fellow creatures here, and to this whole mundane manifested life 
and accountability, universally regarded by mankind as irrespon- 
sible. It is, therefore, personality in a state of incomplete exhi- 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



439 



bition or development, as the man is but the fuller development 
of the infant, albeit there may be no such consciousness of exist- 
ence as in the subsequent and full development, will be necessarily 
recognized as having existed; for latent powers and capacities are 
perfectly consistent with existing personality ; and as Butler re- 
marks, "We find it to be a general law of nature that creatures 
endowed with the capacities of virtue and religion should be placed 
in a condition of being in which they are altogether without the 
use of them for a considerable length of their duration, as in in- 
fancy and childhood." 1 The personality, therefore, may be latent 
.and undeveloped, as regards any present manifested existence as 
a creature of time. In the infant the latency is anterior to such 
development; in the lapsed idiot (as in the alleged instances of 
Marlborough and Swift) its latency is subsequent thereto, though 
rthe personality, — that is, " the individuality existing in itself, but 
with a nature as its ground," — remains. The facts, therefore, are 
indisputable, and only as facts do we adduce them. The at- 
tempted evasion of their force, by assuming that personality is 
merely forensic, expresses no tangible conception, and is too tri- 
vial to be entitled to serious treatment. 

The facts and considerations here referred to, together with in- 
numerable others which can be adduced, and which bear with 
equal point and directness upon the question, may serve to sug- 
gest that the assumption of positive knowledge in relation to all 
the possible conditions in which human personality may be by the 
Creator recognized as actually existing, is seriously at fault. 2 
They who, like Dr. Hodge, would claim a degree of such know- 
ledge sufficient to entitle them to speak thereon with an imperious 
dogmatism, do not know what they presumptuously assume to 
know. Nor should they, on the ground of any such assumption, 
venture, as they do, to ring the changes on " impossibility," " ab- 
surdity," and the like, in regard to what are plainly the averments 
of revelation, until they can furnish some evidence of having pen- 
etrated beyond the merely phenomenal sufficiently to enable them 
to speak intelligently of that which no one in this life can attain 

1 Analogy, Part I., Chapter I. 

2 In note B. (Appendix) our readers will find this whole topic extensively 
'treated in connection with that unity and distinct personality as pertaining 
.to the race. 



440 ORIGINAL SEN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

to a knowledge of except through supernatural sources. Dr. Ju- 
lius Miiller has most earnestly endeavored to pierce beyond the 
veil, but neither his exalted genius nor sincere piety could suffice 
to guard the effort from sanctioning a principle which, if allowed 
and carried forward, would inevitably unsettle many of the great 
truths of revelation in the minds of those who should accept the 
speculation. The fact announced by God as an explanatory prin- 
ciple, that we all really sinned in the fall of our first parents,. 
should be accepted and. treated as a fact, leaving it with God in 
His own way and time to evince the truth of the declaration, and 
leaving it, moreover, to those who refuse His testimony, either on 
this or any other of' the facts of revelation, to denounce and treat 
them as absurd and impossible, as rendering men infidels, and the 
like. We have nothing to do with that matier. It is between 
themselves and the Judge of all the earth, who in the end will 
fully justify the confidence with which the humble believer relies 
on the averments of His word. Dr. Hodge will not venture to 
deny that a sinful state, which is not dependent on our formal 
personal action, is consciously ours, even from the first dawn of 
reason, for he repeatedly affirms the fact, and affirms likewise 
that this sinful state was really ours before our personal or moral 
agency could ptossibly have appropriated it ; that is, that it was 
ours anterior to the development of our actual* personality, and 
finds no difficulty in the way of such affirmation, though on his. 
scheme, and according to his conception of personality, it associ- 
ates sin and a sbfal state with non-existing personality, which, in 
every view that can be taken of it, is a monstrous conception. 
But he shrinks not from its utterance ; and because he is unable 
to understand how we could have participated in the first sin, so 
as to bring ourselves into this fearful condition of bondage and 
spiritual death, assumes the liberty to ridicule the doctrine of such 
participation, though, as we have fully shown, the Church, whose 
theology he is appointed to teach, has ever held and taught that a 
sinful nature was ethically appropriated by us when our first pa- 
rents sinned ; and that hence man, when he becomes consciously a 
moral or personal agent, or is possessed of self-conscious determi- 
nation, finds himself already inherently corrupt and alienated from 
God; and this, in fact, is the ground of that formula, universal in 
the theology of the Eeformation, but so distasteful to Dr. Hodge., 



THE THEORY AXD ITS ETHICS. 



Ml 



natura corrumpit personam? Imbecility may represent this as 
materializing ; but imbecility alone could be capable of such folly. 
Facts, whether in the word or works of God, are not theories. 
A confirmed habit is commonly designated "a second nature." 

J CD 

It may not be constantly in exercise ; i. e,, always developing itself 
in action, but it still exists, and is, so to speak, seated in the con- 
stitution of our nature. Its basis, and how it thus lives and abides, 
we know nothing about. But we have learned its existence from 
its manifested effects. Thus, too, with the peccatum habituate of 
the Church theology, as existing in our nature anterior to a fully 
manifested personality. Luther, in relation to it, employs the 
strong terms peccatum substantiate, peccatum essentiale, not mean- 
ing that it is, as Flacius dreamed, 2 a part of our substance or na- 
ture, but that it exists as a disordered constitutional characteristic 
in our nature anterior to and apart from any mere existence in our 
conscious volition and action, which disordered condition is in no 
way, either penally or otherwise, the causal production of God as 
imparting it to a sinless creature, but a state for the existence of 
which the creature alone is responsible, both as to its origin and 
manifestation in himself, and for the guilt attached to both. And 

1 The whole formula is, Persona corrumpit naturam, natura corrnmpit per- 
sonam, which was employed in treating on original sin, anterior to the Refor- 
mation, by Anselm, Aquinas, and others. By the first clause they designated 
the peccatum originis originans ; and by the second the peccatum originis 
origination ; so that the sense of the full formula is, Natura a primis personis 
corrupta corrumpit ceteris personis. The constant use of this formula by 
the churches of the Reformation evinces how entirely foreign from their the- 
ology is Dr. Hodge's theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin. In later 
ages even the supralapsarians do not venture to ignore it (except such ex- 
tremists as Szydlovius) in stating the doctrine of original sin ; as e. g. Polanus 
thus applies it , " Primum persona in fecit naturam, sed post natura infecit' 
personam. Peccatum Adami naturae ipsius peccatum fuit, cceterium peccata. 
personali sunt," etc. (Syntag. Theol., lib. 6, cap. 3, and compare Dr. 
Hodge's Theology, Vol. I., pp. 26, 27, and Vol. II., pp. 212, 213, 215, 225.) 
Tilenus thus employs it, " Ex primo peccato quo persona corrumpit naturam. 
fluit alter distinctio," etc. (Syntag. Disput,, 56, § 1.) Turrettin likewise, in 
a passage we have cited in § 28, says, i; Ut ergo in Adamo persona infecit 
naturam ; ita in posteris natura infecit personam." (Loc. 9. Qusest. 10, § 22.) 
It is cited and explained by Miiller (Doct. of Sin, Vol. II., pp. 344-3-19), and 
also, amongst others, by Schaff, in Lange on Romans, page 192. 

2 See Claris S. Script,, part, Alt,; Tract. VII., pp. 766-792, and the sub- 
joined Examen by Musasus. (Frankfort and Leipsic, 1719.) 



442 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



-when Pelagius charged Augustine with teaching that original sin 
was a natural sin, peccatum naturale and malum naturale, Augus- 
tine disclaimed the expression, and employed to designate it his 
own phrase, peccatum originate, "because by it the idea of God 
being the author of sin is removed." He employed it also as 
synonymous with hazreditarium vitium (Epist. 1 94, c. 6), and ori- 
ginate vitium (Epist. 157, c. 3). 

Luther does not hesitate to call this sin (i. e., the peccatum sub- 
stantiate) personal sin, though, as he at the same time teaches, it 
exists anterior to and apart from its existence in the conscious 
volition. In other ivords, it had been self -appropriated prior to 
the actio?i of our developed or manifested personality, which is 
literally the teaching of the apostle in Romans v. 12, 19, and 
Ephesians ii. 3; and we repeat, that the mode or method of such 
appropriation must baffle our efforts at solution, and that we must 
rest satisfied with the revealed announcement until we can better 
understand the co-existing unity and distinction of personality in 
our common humanity. 

Such, then, is the Church view; and thus she has ever trium- 
phantly vindicated herself from the calumnious charge that her 
doctrine, either directly or by implication, ascribed to God the 
efficient production of sin as it exists in the world. 

Sin is regarded in her theology as existing in a two-fold manner 
or form; i. e., as a constitutional tendency of the inward life 
{peccatum habituate) ; or, in act {peccatum actuate). In the for- 
mer sense it is never found in the classical use of d,o.apzta ; but the 
Holy Spirit has clearly imparted this sense in the New Testament 
usage ; for example, in Rom. vii., where the term is employed to 
signify a power indwelling and working in our fallen nature. (See 
especially vs. 8-11.) Paul, in this chapter, declares that the 
dfj.apTia before the coming of the law (that is, into his awakened 
moral nature or conscience) was dead = latent, destitute of vitality 
or demonstrative power; and that when the commandment did 
come it assumed its power and slew him. Now sin is, beyond cdl 
question, always and inevitably associated with personality, and 
cannot possibly exist dissociated therefrom, ivhether it be the act 
itself, or the tendency to the act. Nor can any Augustinian ques- 
tion that it truly exists in the latent or undeveloped personality of 
infants and idiots, as aforesaid. For either infants, in whom Dr. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



443 



Hodge affirms that it is found existing anterior to the exercise of 
moral agency, are really persons in the true sense of the term, or 
sin in them exists dissociated from personality. And the con- 
clusion, therefore, from these facts, as affecting the speculations 
•of Dr. Hodge on the point now before us, is too obvious to require 
to be dwelt upon. Indeed, if we had no other declaration of his 
than that contained in the "following passage, it would be all that 
is necessary. He says: "The Bible teaches us the solution of this 
difficulty. It reveals to us the principle of representation on the 
ground of which the penalty of Adam' ] s sin comes upon his pos- 
terity as the reward of Christ's righteousness comes upon His peo- 
ple. In the one case the penalty brings subjective sinfulness, and 
in the other the reward brings subjective holiness." 1 

In this same chapter (the 7th) of Romans, moreover, we find 
the apostle describing the d/iap-ca as dwelling in him in a latent 
manner even after it had assumed its power; — d^apria h ejioi ohooaa ; 
and as v6[lo$ a/xaprta?. And yet this antagonism to God and holi- 
ness, which can only exist at all in association with actually exist- 
ing personality, may, notwithstanding (as Dr. Hodge's theory 
compels him to assume), exist in an undeveloped, latent manner 
before its ethical appropriation by the subject in vjhom it inheres ; 
that is, it exists as a " sinful state" in its subject before his conscious 
moral agency or personality begins to exist, and so secretly, 
moreover, as to defy all human effort at analysis. So that the 
legitimate consequence of this opinion, therefore, is, that it must 
either exist apart from personality, — which would be a monstrous 
conception, and at once associate its advocate with Flacius and his 
followers, — or, that it exists in connection with actual, though still 
latent, ptersonality, and as sustaining a relation to the law of God 
and to the first sin which He affirms to be real, and not putative, 
but which, for sufficient reasons, He, as yet, has merely affirmed, 
and not fully explained. And for Dr. Hodge to take this ground 
would be to renounce formally his whole theory and exegesis, and 
to recall all his objurgations on the subject of personality. 

The application of all this to the question as to the Divine 
authorship of sin is sufficiently apparent, and requires to be only 
briefly touched upon. The Church, as already stated, by accept- 
ing the forenamed explanatory principle, and on that ground de- 
1 Theology, Vol. II., page 114. 



411 



OKIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



fending the doctrine, relieves the divine character from any im- 
plication of originating sin as existing in the race, and makes man 
alone responsible both for its origin and continued existence. But 
gratuitous imputation, by teaching the penal production of sin in 
a then sinless and impersonal race, allows no possible alternative 
but to attribute its origin to God. For in what condition does 
this imputation of guilt to the guiltless creature place him in his 
relation to the Creator ? God created him, of course, to live and 
act. If he should not act, he would frustrate this design, and so 
sin ; and if he act at all, the conditions of his being are such that 
(as Dr. Hodge is obliged to affirm) he inevitably sins. But he 
must live and think and act, — the very necessities of his nature 
requiring -it ; and if he act at all he' sins. 1 What relation, then, 
do these sinful acts sustain to the will and purpose of God? Can 
the consequence, in any way conceivable, be avoided, that such 
being the inexorable demands of the creature's condition, he is, by 
acting, only fulfilling the will of his Creator ? Is the conclusion 
avoidable ? If not, then this theory of Dr. Hodge, notwithstand- 
ing all his declamation and assumptions repecting individual per- 
sonality, does inevitably charge upon God the authorship of sin as 
existing in the posterity of Adam; and, therefore, that theory can 
constitute neither part nor parcel of the Augustinian doctrine. 

2. The original sentence on our first parents. 

The inculcations of Dr. Hodge respecting the original sentence 
condemning our first parents lead to a similar conclusion. 

The sentence of condemnation, i. e., the xpt,aa si? xardxpt^a (Rom. 
v. 16), pronounced upon the race after the fall was not, as appears 
from Genesis iii., the sentence of full and absolute condemnation 
threatened in Genesis ii. 17. The sentence threatened in this 
latter passage was, in the absolute sense of U, suspended through 
the intervention of the Mediator ; and the sentence actually pro- 
no tmcecl was, through His interposition, fraught with mercy and 
salvation, which, of course, could form no part of a threatening v 

1 Augustine admits that the condition of the posterity of Adam is such that 
they inevitably sin. But the difference between his doctrine and the theory 
of Dr. Hodge is: Augustine teaches that in the first fall the race all sinned, 
and so put it out of their power ever to do otherwise ; while Dr. Hodge affirms- 
that this necessity to sin came upon the race as a peccatum alienum. The 
one, therefore, traces it to the creature as the cause, the other to the direct 
efficiency of the Creator. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



445 



Dr. Hodge, however, affirms on the subject, that " they (Adam's 
posterity), no less obviously, are born into the world destitute of 
original righteousness, and subject to spiritual death. The full 
penalty, therefore, threatened against Adam has oeen inflicted 
upon. them. It was death, tvith the promise of 'redemption" 1 

It is difficult to imagine what meaning the author intended to 
convey by this declaration. I have supposed, however, that he 
may mean that the penalty, not as threatened, but only as in- 
flicted, was death, with the promise of redemption; for it can 
hardly be supposed that he considers the -promise of redemption 
as part of the original threatening. And yet, as his theory repre- 
sents God as efficiently placing the race in a condition of inherent 
corruption and spiritual death, only one of two things logically 
remained to Dr. Hodge in his attempted explication of the matter 
before us: (1), either to acknowledge frankly that the sin and 
perdition of those who perish is to be ascribed solely to His pur- 
pose and efficient operation, and so admit Him to be really the 
author of sin; or (2), to represent the Holy and Eight eons One, 
who cannot look upon sin with the least allowance, as saying sub- 
stantially to His creatures that " If you choose to disobey My com- 
mands, you need not suffer the consequence." The caricature 
presented of the Divine nature by modern Universalism is really 
unexceptionable when compared with this ! And Dr. Hodge, 
moreover, has no reason for asserting that "the full penalty origi- 
nally threatened was inflicted upon the posterity of Adam," which 
is the Socinian view, and has always been rejected by the Church. 
Dr. Breckinridge, however, with a far clearer and more thorough 
insight into the whole transaction, says: "Then came the com- 
mencement of the execution of this sentence of God. It is, so to 
speak, an interlocutory sentence extending from the fall till the 
final judgment, where the complete result of the whole penalty of 

transgression will be made fully manifest Terrible as this 

sentence is, let it be comprehended clearly that it is not the full, 
the final sentence of the great day; that the complete penalty de- 
nounced by God upon transgression is stayed both as to its re- 
utterance and execution." 2 

1 See his Theology, Vol. II., p. 197 ; and Index Volume to Princeton 
Eeview, pp. 11, seq. 

2 See Theology Objectively Considered, pp. 496, 497. 



446 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Before the sentence (restricted thus as to its full effect in the 
execution) had been pronounced, the race, through its progenitors, 
Adam and Eve, had been brought into the condition which ren- 
dered necessary the redemption promised in Gen. iii. 15. But Dr.. 
Hodge's theory necessarily refers this previous condition of the 
race (that is, previous to the sentence pronounced in Genesis iii., 
though subsequent to the fall) to an act of God bringing upon it 
this guilt and corruption on account of Adam's sin. So that, if 
this theory be true, there must have been a previous xp(/j.a efr xard- 
xpt'j.a, — that is, there must have been a judicial sentence anterior 
to the sentence pronounced in Genesis iii., and one which imputed 
to them the peccatum alienum of Adam; because the sentence in 
Genesis iii. finds them already ruined, death-stricken, and in per- 
ishing need of a saviour; and into which condition, as Dr. Hodge 
constantly avers, they had been brought only by an antecedent or 
gratuitous imputation of Adam's sin, and, of course, antecedent 
to the sentence in Genesis iii., which was pronounced upon them 
as already guilty. Now r , if no such anterior sentence may be sup- 
posed, then, of course, they were not constituted guilty and de- 
praved by any sentence charging upon them the peccatum alienum 
of Adam ; and consequently, the theory of gratuitous imputation 
is plainly false and contrary to fact. For the sentence in Genesis 
iii. is a sentence pronounced in view of their already existing de- 
pravity, and not a sentence constituting them depraved, or in 
which Adam's guilt is forensically charged to them in order to 
punish them with moral corruption on account of it. Nothing is 
plainer. But if, on the contrary, such a previous sentence is to be 
supposed, then no alternative remains but to admit that, by a pre- 
vious forensic judgment unto condemnation, God first brought the 
sinless posterity of Adam under the curse; that is, efficiently 
placed them in a condition needing redemption, and then (in Gen. 
iii.) sentenced them to death for being in that condition, and 
finally provided for them a Redeemer, who should, at a mighty 
sacrifice, deliver a part of them from that condition ! And thus 
we are brought again to the conclusion that Dr. Hodge's theory 
of the gratuitous imputation of sin must be either totally aban- 
doned, or this intolerable representation of our good and gracious 
God must be admitted, and He must be charged with being the 
efficient author of sin as existing in the posterity of Adam. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



44T 



3. The transmission of sin. 

The same conclusion is logically demonstrable by Dr. Hodge's 
views of the transmission of sin. 

Dr. Hodge, in attempting to defend his scheme of gratuitous 
imputation, and in reply to Dr. Baird, after observing that sin, or 
moral corruption, cannot exist in the body as such, cites, as the doc- 
trine of the Church, the supralapsarian canon (always rejected by 
the Church), that sin is transmitted neither by the body, nor soul, 
but by guilt ; 1 that is, by imputation alone. He likewise explicitly 
denies that the soul is, in any sense, sinful when first created and 
united to the body, and his explanation of the transmission of sin 
is : " It is not a material infection of the blood, it is not a sub- 
stance either corporeal or spiritual, to be transmitted by physical 
laws, but it is a punitive infliction. It is the consequence of the 
withdrawal of the fellowship and favor of God from the descendants 
of Adam as the judicial consequence of his apostasy" 2 and that,, 
previous to this judicial consequence overtaking his descendants, 
they are entirely free from guilt and subjective ill-desert ; but that, 
as the penalty of this, his apostasy, the soul is created destitute of 
righteousness and true holiness; i. e., of the supernatural gifts 
possessed by our first parents. 

1 Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 367 and 362, and Danville Revieio for 1861 r 
p. 569. 

2 So far as concerns the transmission of sin, this language has the Pelagian 
rather than the Augustinian ring. Augustine, in every form of expression,, 
has asserted that Adam's sin has passed to all his descendants by propagation 
{per traducem) , and in proof cites Rom. v. 12. It was on this account that 
Julian nick -named him Traclucianus . And Pelagius asserts absolutely that 
there is no sin which passes by generation from Adam to his posterity, that 
such propagation is not to be admitted, and that to maintain it is insanity. 
He denied also that souls are begotten -per traducem, and affirmed that every 
soul is created immediately by God. Wiggers, in chapter 19, states the main 
position of each of the systems as follows : 

" Aug. — By Adam's sin, in whom all men jointly sinned together, sin and 
the other positive punishments of Adam's sin came into the world. By it hu- 
man nature has been both physically and morally corrupted. Every man 
brings into the world with him a nature already so corrupt that he can do 
nothing but sin. The propagation of this quality of his nature is by con- 
cupiscence. 

" Pelga. — By his transgression, Adam injured only himself, not his pos- 
terity. In respect to his moral nature, every man is horn in precisely the same 
condition in which Adam was created. There is, therefore, no original sin." 
Translated by Emerson, (Andover and New York, 1840.) 



448 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Now we clo not propose to imitate these endeavors at philo- 
sophizing on the subject; but the question here occurs: Whether 
a moral agent thus destitute of righteousness and holiness can be 
in a state of innocence ? Dr. Hodge is logically obliged to take 
the affirmative here, so far as the posterity of Adam are concerned ; 
for his doctrine is that they could have had no subjective guilt or 
ill-desert as the ground of the imputation or judgment unto con- 
demnation which came upon them for Adam's sin. 1 And if they 
had none, they, of course, were innocent, and not only innocent, but 
righteous, though created without Adam's supernatural gifts. For 
the Church has always taught that, in a moral or accountable 
agent, it is the same thing to be innocent as to be righteous ; or, as 
Edwards, in his reply to Dr. John Taylor, has expressed it: "In 
Si moral agent, subject to moral obligations, it is the same thing to 
be perfectly innocent as to be perfectly righteous. It must be the 
same, because there can be no more any medium between sin and 
righteousness, or between being right and wrong in a moral sense, 
than there can be between being straight and being crooked in a 
natural sense." 2 And in fact, if they were not the same, then, 
according to Dr. Hodge's doctrine, God must create the soul in a 
state not only of putative guilt — (for the guilt of a want of original 
righteousness, or of conformity to the law, is more than a merely 
forensic or putative guilt ; our standards pronounce it sin) — but in 
& state of moral pollution ; for without holiness it is unholy, and 
without righteousness unrighteous. To affirm, then, that the soul 
is created sinless, when such are the admitted conditions of its 
moral status, is simply to utter a self-contradiction. But if, on 
the other hand, it be really created in such a state ; i. e., destitute 
of righteousness and holiness, to whom is to be attributed its then 
existing want of conformity to law? Not, of course, to the crea- 
ture itself, but to Him alone who gave it existence in this condi- 
tion. Now, Dr. Hodge admits what is certainly undeniable, that 
if God could be supposed to create a sinful being, He would be 
the author of sin; and this the Church has always affirmed. 
Whence, then, according to his theory, proceeds this clearly im- 
plied sin and unholiness of a creature whom he constantly affirms 

1 See. for instance, his Commentary on Eomans v. 12-19. 

2 Works, Vol. II., 411. See also Ursinus' Explication of the Heidelberg 
Catechism, Qucest. 60, p. 336, and Melancthon's Loci Communes, pp. 29, 30. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



449 



to be antecedent to the original imputation, sinless, and without 
any ill-desert whatever? — an affirmation, moreover, which he is 
most rigorously compelled to insist on, or else to abandon both 
his theory and his exegesis of Rom. v. 12-21. 

The point is certainly a vital one in the connection, and let us 
therefore analyze his statements a little more closely. 

And (1), Are we to understand him, therefore, as teaching that 
God creates the soul in a morally defiled state, and then unites it 
to the body ? Dr. Hodge most emphatically answers, No ! (2), 
Does He, then, create it in an undenled state — that is, in a sinless 
or guiltless condition % As there can be no medium, this must 
of course be so, and Dr. Hodge affirms that it is so. And this be- 
ing so, it is in point to ask, (3), When is the punishment or original 
imputation (which Dr. Hodge alleges to be the penalty of the pec- 
catum alienum) visited upon the innocent offspring of Adam ? 
Dr. Hodge does not say. Nor is this, at all surprising, for, as we 
shall see, he is unable to allege any point of time at which the 
penal visitation might be supposed to take effect, without involv- 
ing himself and his theory and exegesis in hopeless and inextri- 
cable confusion and contradiction. But let us proceed, (4), Is, 
then, the soul, on account of the imputed peccatum alienum, cre- 
ated for en sically guilty ? If so, when can the actual imputation 
of Adam's guilt be supposed to take place ? It cannot take place 
after the soul's creation, of course ; for if so, it would be exempt 
from that guilt when created, and could not be created under guilt 
and as forensically guilty ; and such a statement must, therefore, 
be given up as self-contradictory. (5), Is, then, the imputation 
coetaneous with the creation of the soul ? For if so, it is still, of 
course, created under guilt ; but in that case where are we to look 
for that innocence of which Dr. Hodge speaks, and upon which 
the guilt of " the one sin of the one man " comes by imputation ? 
For it is necessary that, anterior to the imputation, the posterity 
should be innocent, or Dr. Hodge's whole theory and exegesis are 
swept helplessly by the board. But if the ground be taken that both 
imputation and creation are instantaneous and synchronous, then the 
one does not follow the other, and so there would be no innocence 
upon which to charge guilt, and God would be represented as cre- 
ating a moral agent already guilty, and exposed thereby to the 
penalty of the law. But this would be confessedly to make him 
29 



450 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



the author of sin, and therefore is not allowable. (6), If, then, 
the imputation of this foreign sin cannot take place either after or 
during the soul's creation, does it take effect before it comes into 
being ? — a view which Dr. Hodge sometimes seems disposed to 
maintain, as in his discussion with Dr. Baird, where he says, " If 
God judicially withhold spiritual life from apostate men they are 
dead. They come into being in darkness and death. We do not 
think Dr. Baird has much ground for the charge of heresy on this 
point." 1 But if the imputation and their apostasy occur before 
" they come into being," where is their exemption from all ill-de- 
sert anterior to the imputation, on which Dr. Hodge so emphati- 
cally insists, and on which rests the whole fabric of his theory and 
exegesis ? And if a creature before his creation (if the Hibernicism 
may be allowed) has apostasy and guilt justly laid to his charge, 
then he begins his existence as already guilty and condemned, and 
of course no after-imputation can constitute him guilty ; for God 
creates him such, and would therefore be the author of sin. So 
this must be rejected as inadmissible. And we might add, that if 
the posterity of Adam, before they come into being, are apostate, 
and may in any way have guilt and condemnation justly rest upon 
them, they might also, perhaps, in some way have really partici- 
pated in the first sin ; but we pass this. Our scrutiny, therefore, 
of the Doctor's dogmatic on the subject conducts us inevitably to 
the conclusion, that this imputation of a peccatum, alienum to 
Adam's posterity cannot take place either before, or during, or 
after their creation — the circumstances of the case actually render- 
ing it impossible. And this being so, w T e think a man might, 
without any great degree of presumption, conclude that such an 
imputation really does not take place at all. 

I have presented this careful analysis of Dr. Hodge's statements 
in order to show that a strict scrutiny of his theory leaves no con- 
ceivable alternative except either to admit a basis of subjective 
ill-desert in the creature as a moral ground for the imputation of 
the Adamic sin, or to ascribe to the Creator alone the source and 
origin of sin as it exists in the race. The rejection of the doc- 
trine of our subjective demerit as the ground for the judgment 
unto condemnation leaves no alternative but to attribute the effi- 
cient production of our sinful state to the sovereign will of God. 

1 See Princeton Review for 1860, page 765. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



451 



Dr. Hodge rejects that doctrine ; his whole theory is based upon 
that rejection ; and he repeats it in all his endeavors to sustain 
that theory. No disclaimer, therefore, denying that God is the 
author of sin, can avail any thing in the face of a theory, and a 
whole line of attempted ratiocination, which, while they affirm 
that sin does actually exist in the race, yet equally affirm that it 
does not causally proceed from the race, but from a divine penal 
infliction upon the sinless. I add a single remark. 

After Abelard, in the course of his philosophical speculations, 
had adopted the principle that our personal consent is necessary 
to constitute sin, he found that he could no longer speak of sin in 
the proper sense as pertaining to the new-born infant ; and yet he 
was not willing, as Pelagius had done, to deny the existence of 
original sin. He therefore, as the Socinians and Remonstrants 
since have, done, took the word mi in a two-fold sense, to-wit : in 
the sense of voluntary perpetration, and likewise in the sense of 
punishment. " Infants," says he, " have no part in the former, 
but only in the latter.'' 1 And so, likewise, Dr. Hodge, in the en- 
deavor to defend his theory by disapproving the doctrine that all 
the race really sinned in Adam, is compelled to make the same 
division in regard to sin, and to apply the term to new-born in- 
fants in the same manner. They have " inherent sin," says he 
{and so said Abelard), but it is only a punishment for Adam's 
personal sin ! They have a sinful nature, says he, but that sinful 
nature is only the penalty of the peccatum alienum of Adam, and 
not the result of their having sinned in Adam or participated with 
him in his sin. And thus is the Church doctrine sacrificed and 
.abandoned through speculations so unworthy and unwarrantable. 

4. Our next salient point from which to survey the scheme, is 
the demands of justice. 

Dr. Hodge's attempted explanation of the demands of divine 
justice can in no way relieve his theory from charging upon God 
the direct authorship of sin as existing in the posterity of Adam. 
He hopes, however, to save it by representing the infliction of the 
punishment for a peccatum alienum upon the race as a penal in- 
fliction, — an infliction demanded by justice, all of which he is per- 
petually repeating. And yet he never attempts to show why or 
on what ground the inflictions are to be regarded as penal, or how 
justice could require them of those who have never offended. 
1 See Hagenbach's History of Doctrines, § 117, Xote 3. 



452 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



Let us, then, consider this attempt to save the theory from pre- 
senting God as the author of sin. 

In order to prevent misapprehension, however, I offer at this 
point a brief remark. Merit, in the strict theological sense, — 
i. e., merit am e condigno, 1 — is never in the word of God attributed 
to fallen creatures, even after they have been renewed and sancti- 
fied, though demerit is, or ill-desert. The language of our Saviour 
is, " Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that 
were commanded him ? I trow not. So likewise ye, when ye 
shall have done all these things which are commanded you, say 
we are unprofitable {aypsTot) servants; we have done that which 
was our duty to do." (Luke xvii. 9, 10.) He by no means in- 
timates that a blessed reward does not await His faithful servants, 
for He had promised it in chapter xii. 31, but simply states the 
fact that whatever reward they receive is of grace alone, and not 
to be demanded on the score of right. 

The Old Testament has no term which even responds to such an 
idea. The nearest is lor?, which means favor, kindness, love, zeal y 
etc., but not merit. And in the New Testament ayaOo-ota is any good 
deed simply as distinguished from evil, and not as meritorious in 
the sight of God. The terms a$(a and aciorr^ have reference to 
dignity or excellence, not merit ; dpsityfia refers simply to debt or 
indebtedness ; while nepvKohi<ri$ is acquisition, vindication ; and the 
verb TzeptTzoUiadat, as employed therein, approximate the idea only 
apparently, but in no way even imply it. The spirit is " the ear- 
nest of our inheritance until the redemption of the acquisition 
(-tf>t~oirj(T£Lo$)" (Eph. i. 14.) " God has not appointed us to 
wrath, but xeptxonjfftv {Twryptas, to the acquisition (or obtainment) 
of salvation ." (1 Thess. v. 9 ; see also Acts xx. 28.) In no sense^ 
therefore, can we of ourselves merit the favor of God, inasmuch 
as we already have forfeited it through sin ; though we may (and 
by impenitence must) deserve His wrath. Even the sinless creature 
can never do more than its simple duty ; yet as long as its sinless- 
ness continues it is entitled to the continuance of that favor (Rom. 
iv. 4), so far as regards support, protection, and exemption from 
all penal evil, and cannot deserve God's displeasure, or to be 
treated as a transgressor or in enemy. 

1 "Merit," says Dr. Owen, "is such an adjunct of obedience, as whereby 
the reward is reckoned, not of grace, but of debt." 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



453 



On what ground, then, is it conceivable that a righteous or in- 
nocent creature (that is, righteous according to law) may, while 
remaining such, be brought under the penal inflictions of justice 
or law ? As it has no ill-desert, justice can have no exaction to 
satisfy against it ; the law requires only continued obedience, and, 
of course, punishment inflicted in such a case cannot be for the 
support of either law or justice, for neither has been infringed. 
What Dr. Hodge offers, therefore, in attempting to commend his 
theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, to-wit : that " punish- 
ment is evil or suffering inflicted in support of law," and that " to 
inflict it for the attainment of some righteous and desirable end 
may be not only just, but benevolent ; is not the support of the 
divine law such an end ?" 1 — is of no avail, and can have no 
relevancy in any such connection ; nor can it in any way relieve 
his theory, until he shall show on what ground justice could pos- 
sibly demand such infliction against those who had never in any 
way violated its requirements ; for the divine law, instead of be- 
ing supported^ would, on the contrary, be plainly dishonored by 
inflicting what it confessedly does not claim the prerogative to in- 
flict — that is, punishment upon those who have not transgressed 
its requirements. And Dr. Hodge, moreover, contradicts his as- 
sertion that justice is conceived in punishing ill-desert ; 2 for in the 
instance before us there is confessedly no ill-desert ; and his theory 
demands that he deny emphatically that there should be any. 
And consequently neither justice nor law can, in such a case, be 
supported by either a forensic sentence of condemnation, or by 
the actual infliction of punishment. 

If, then, evil cannot be penally inflicted on the confessedly in- 
nocent creature through the demands of either justice or law, in 
what way or upon what ground does Dr. Hodge's scheme of the 
gratuitous imputation of sin bring it upon the race whom he so 
emphatically affirms to be subjectively innocent ? It can scarcely 
be necessary to press the point ; for the principle of Dr. Hodge 
being granted, it is obviously impossible to avoid the conclusion 
that his theory makes (as Rutherford expresses it) " the punitive 
justice of God a free act of His will ; " that is, its whole exercise 
in regard to the creature depends on the mere will of God, with- 
out reference to either justice or law. The posterity is not sub- 

1 Theology, Vol, II., pp. 204, 205. 2 Ibid. Vol. I:, p. 140. 



454 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



jectively guilty, says Dr. Hodge, and of course neither justice nor 
law has been in any way infringed by them ; and yet they are, by a 
condemnatory sentence, punished, and brought into a state of de- 
pravity, spiritual death, and of enmity to God, simply because 
God, of His mere will and pleasure, sees proper to inflict the fear- 
ful penalty ! On what ground, then, can it be rationally denied 
(if these things are allowed) that God alone is the efficient or pro- 
curing cause of sin in the posterity of Adam ? The infliction is 
not through the essential rectitude of the divine nature in punish- 
ing transgression, for those who are thus punished have commit- 
ted no offence — a fact not only affirmed (as such), but insisted on 
in its fullest and widest sense by Dr. Hodge. And hence, there- 
fore, either Gocl is the sole origin and author of this their depraved 
and polluted state, or this theory is, without qualification, false, and 
an atrocious and unmitigated calumny upon His adorable perfec- 
tions. 

This essential attribute — which is so natural to the great and 
glorious Author of our being, that, sin being supposed to exist, He 
cannot be regarded otherwise than as opposing it, or, in other 
words, as punishing it — is thus transformed into mere option on 
his part, or into a mere act of the will, the very conception of it 
which Socinus and his school labored most assiduously to establish. 
u /f," says he, "we could only get rid of this justice, that human 
figment of Christ's satisfaction would be thoroughly exploded and 
vanish." 1 His conclusion was logical and legitimate ; and yet we 
here find, in a professedly orthodox system of doctrine, this wished- 
for work fully and unblushingly accomplished to his hand ! And 
the demonstration is impregnable, or the theory of the gratuitous 
imputation of sin is a calumny upon God. 

Dr. John Owen, in refuting the insane speculations of Ruther- 
ford on this subject, takes occasion to advert to the fact, that his 
view of the justice of God is the same as that of the Socinian 
school (and in proof cites all their leading writers), 2 and then ex- 
patiates on the point before us as follows : " But to me these argu- 
ments are altogether astonishing, viz., 'that sin-punishing justice 
should be natural to God, and yet that God, sin being supposed 

1 See his Be Servatore, Lib. III., Cap. I. 

2 Socinus, Crellius, Volkel, Slichtingius, etc. See Works of Owen, Vol. IX.? 
p. 356. 



THZ TKZOEY AZsD ITS ETHICS. 



455 



to exist, may either exercise it or not exercise it. 7 They may also 
gay, and with as much propriety, that truth is natural to God, but 
that, upon a supposition that He were to converse with men, He 
might use it or not ; or that omnipotence is natural to God, but 
upon a supposition that He was inclined to do any work without 
Himself j that it were free to him to act omnipotently or not ; or, 
finally, that sm-punislting justice is among the primary causes of 
the death of Christ, and that Christ was set forth as a propitiation 
to declare His righteousness, and yet that that justice required 
not the punishment of sin. If it should require it, how is it pos- 
sible that it should not necessarily require it, since God would be 
unjust if He should not inflict punishment? Or farther, they 
might as well assert that God willed that justice should be satisfied 
by so many and so great sufferings of His Son Christ, when that 
justice required no such thing; nay more, that, setting aside the 
free act of the Divine will, sin and no sin are the same tiling with 
God, and that man's mortality hath not followed chiefly as the 
consequence of sin, but of the will of God. These and such like 
difficulties .... fill me with confusion and astonishment." 

That God could, in any way or on any account, hate the sinless 
or innocent, is certainly an inconceivable and impossible supposi- 
tion ; for as well might it be said that he could hate holiness and 
righteousness. But, if this be so, how is it to be conceived that 
He, by a mere act of His sovereign will, should turn the sinless 
or innocent into His enemies if He did not hate them \ He could 
not do it from love to them, of course ; nor from justice and equity 
towards them; for they had infringed neither. iSor from any 
necessity of sacrificing the eternal welfare of some in order to pro- 
mote the welfare of others ; for such necessity, and consequent im- 
perfection, cannot possibly attach to His rule or dominion. Nor 
could it arise from indifference to the welfare of His sinless off- 
spring; for this would at once impeach His moral perfections. 
On what ground, then, is it conceivable that this fearful procedure 
should occur I The only answer is, that it does not occur at ail, 
and therefore needs not to he accounted for, and that the theory 
which requires thai it should occur is, from its ichole inception, a 
falsehood, and, as above affirmed, is without qualification an un- 
mitigated calumny upon the Divine character, and should be so 
regarded and treated bv all to whom that character is dear. But 



456 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



we liave not room to expatiate on the point, nor is it necessary. 
If, however, our readers would see in cxtenso how such notions 
fare when brought into antagonism with the truth of God, let 
them peruse Chapters VI-X1V of Owen's little work on Divine 
Justice, above referred to — a treatise to which no Socinian or su- 
pralapsarian has ever ventured to respond. 

It is a clear and everywhere apparent doctrine of the Scriptures, 
sustained also by human consciousness, that no accountable crea- 
ture can righteously be made to incur the penal inflictions of Di- 
vine justice whose conscience (if undefiled) will not witness for 
God against himself, and induce him, self-convicted, to say, "/ 
have justly deserved this infliction ." He has only to know (what 
will be fully known in the future stages of our being) the actual 
ground on which God regards and treats him as guilty, in order 
to recognize in his own moral consciousness that his treatment is 
in just accordance with his actual deserts. In fact, the principle 
here referred to is the very basis of the appeal in the prayer of 
Abraham : " That be far from Thee to do after this manner, to 
slay the righteous with the wicked; and that the righteous should 
be as the wicked, that he far from Thee. Shall not the Judge of 
all the earth do right?" And the basis also of the Divine aver- 
ment that the doctrine that our whole race is justly exposed to 
eternal wrath, and are in need of a Saviour, commends itself to 
every marts conscience in the sight of God ; and, moreover, that 
the effect of the Divine proclamation, that men are the authors of 
their own temporal and eternal ruin, will be u that every mouth 
may be stopped, and all the u>orld be [confessedly] guilty before 
God" 1 Such are not only the direct or implied utterances of 
revelation in a thousand instances, but they are also intuitively re- 
cognized as true by man's moral nature; and anything which 
would disturb this conviction, or so pervert it as to render it 
dubious and consequently inefficacious in its utterances, by unau- 
thorized endeavors to modify the accepted definitions of sin, guilt, 
justice , punishment^ and the like, in order to save from merited 
rejection an unfounded theory and unwarrantable exegesis, is but 
" a sowing of the wind," and furnishes, moreover, a mournfully 
instructive example of the effects which may accrue from any en- 
deavor to mingle even an apparently trivial dictum of a false 
1 See Gen. xviii. 25 ; 2 Coy. iv. 2 ; and Rom. iii. 21. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



457 



philosophy with the revealed truth of God. And Dr. Hodge's 
attempted explication of the demands of Divine justice, therefore, 
cannot relieve his theory from the clear implication of attributing 
to God the authorship of sin in the race, and therefore cannot res- 
cue it from being deservedly disclaimed and repudiated as in 
direct and offensive antagonism to the gospel itself and to the 
whole system of Augustinian theology. 

5. The origin of sin in the posterity of Adam. 

We have incidentally and in passing repeatedly alluded to this 
topic, but it requires in the connection a special consideration, and 
we shall conclude this protracted section with the following argu- 
ment : " - 

As regards sin and its manifestation in this mundane sphere, we 
have the direct evidence of consciousness that it is not only in us 
(" the sin that dwelleth in me "), but from us as its responsible 
cause and origin, and this has ever been recognized as the teach- 
ing of the word of God. The conception expressed in the afore- 
said explanatory principle is announced, not in the Scriptures 
only, but has always been evident as a truth disclosed to the con- 
sciousness of the Church, or at least therein clearly recognized. 
And though in itself that principle be inexplicable, it nevertheless 
is found always accepted, substantially expressed, and practically 
applied in her explication or development and defence of the doc- 
trine of original sin, as is clearly manifest by the citations we 
have presented from her great and gifted sons. The unity of na- 
ture and distinction of personality in man as a race, though a 
great and essential truth, is not, however, disclosed merely as a 
fact or abstract truth, but always in connection with its concrete 
relation to sin and the fall, and as the principle for explaining our 
lost condition, as well as the judicial dealings of God with the 
race, in like manner as in that of the unity and triunity of the 
divine nature, which, so far as my observation has led, is never an- 
nounced abstractly as a fact, but in connection with its relation to 
creation and redemption. The principle in itself is in neither case 
explained, but simply announced, and given in both instances as 
the divinely declared basis for understanding that which it is ne- 
cessary we should understand, in order that the truth announced 
in those connections might be adequately brought home to our in- 
tellectual and moral nature. They are principles, therefore, which 



458 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



in both cases elude the severest efforts of our intellectual powers- 
to subject to analysis, or even to grasp, but require to be received 
with a docile, child-like faith on the testimony of God, and so to be 
truly and practically recognized in our inner life and consciousness. 

The theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin, on the contrary, 
symbolizes closely with a notion of Plato and some of his school,, 
that evil is something which happens to man from without, and 
in the procuring of which to ourselves the will has no agency ; as 
in the case of the posterity of Adam the will could have had no- 
thing to do with bringing upon them from without (as Dr. Hodge 
expresses it l ) the gratuitous imputation of his sin ; all of which 
seems quite in harmony with that superficial world-morality which 
always regards sin as coming more from without than from within. 
And as is the fact with mathematical science (as has been often 
remarked), the sphere of whose truths is so low that they stand 
not opposed to doubt, but to absurdity alone, and the development 
of which depends in no sense upon the moral status of the investi- 
gator. So this superficial morality finds its sphere in the reason 
and intellect, and peremptorily persists in the fanatical endeavor 
to test even the most sacred truths pertaining to the inner or 
spiritual life, and to our intercourse with God, and our relations- 
to Him, all by that same alembic. 2 But the highest and most 
powerful objects of our knowledge are those which vanish from 
the spirit in proportion to its withdrawment into its natural self- 
satisfied reason, and will receive nothing which cannot be demon- 
strated to it ; those are they which can only be appropriated by a 
living act, and can only be retained by the ever-repeated elevation 
of the spirit above itself. Divine truths, says Pascal, reach the 
spirit through the heart. One must love divine things in order to- 
know them. 3 

1 " So in the case of Adam and his offence, as something out of ourselves, a 
peccatum alienum is the judicial ground of the condemnation of the race, of 
which condemnation spiritual death, or inward corruption, is the expression 
and the consequence." See Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 339, 340, 341 - T 
and Theology, Vol. I., pp. 26, 27, and Vol. II., pp. 191, 192, 538, 551, 552. 

2 Marheinike denned " intellectual faith " as " a faith which believes that it 
thinks, and thinks that it believes ; but is equally unable to do either." See 
Kurtz's Church History, Vol. II., p. 353. 

3 See Miiller on The Christian Doctrine of Sin, Vol. I. pp. 188, 189. The 
same grand thought is likewise powerfully presented by Dr. Owen, in Preface 
to Divine Justice, Works, Vol. IX., pp. 325, 326. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



459 



The Scripture doctrine, therefore, has no sympathy with this in- 
tellectual fanaticism. And as one of the innumerable instances to 
the contrary, the expression of David in Psalm 51 may be named, 
in which he admits the sinfulness of his nature from his concep- 
tion: "It is not that he might extenuate his fault, or reprehend 
the offences of his father and mother, but rather that he might 
exaggerate the crime which he had recently perpetrated, that he 
says, ' Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother 
conceive me.' " 1 He had, in verse 4, acknowledged the greatness- 
of his crime against God and his neighbor, and then, as an aggra- 
vation, refers to the fact that he was shapen in iniquity (not guilt, 
for p'u; has no such sense in itself, except as sin is connected with 
guilt), and so confesses that to himself, and not to God, is to be at- 
tributed the evil of his nature, and recognizes that the iniquity in 
which he was shapen was his own. The correlate to this is Epfu 
ii. 3, in which the apostle affirms, that according to our innate r 
native, constitutional character, we are the objects of God's punitive 
justice — "children of wrath." The character is, therefore, our 
own originally, and of course not made so, either directly or indi- 
rectly, by anything coming upon us from without; i. e., by any 
merely forensic imputation. And yet this great and profound 
truth is now rejected with scorn by gratuitous imputationists, be- 
cause it refuses a response to the shallow attempts of what is pre- 
posterously termed a rational analysis. 1 

If, however, sin or spiritual death is to be regarded as coming- 
upon us from without, or as something "out of ourselves;" that 
is, as the penalty of a gratuitously imputed or foreign sin, then,, 
of course, to trace its source or origin to ourselves is simply im- 
possible, as much so as it would be to trace to the traveller at the 
foot of the Alps the origin and formation of the avalanche which 
has overwhelmed him. And it is, therefore, either left without a 
producing cause, or its origin must be referred to the Divine effi- 
ciency. Now, as we have seen, Dr. Hodge's theory does affirm 
that sin comes upon the posterity of Adam solely from without, 
and makes their moral pollution the penalty of a peccalum aliemim y 
and alleges, moreover, directly and positively, that the 'posterity 
did not in any w T ay bring the judgment of condemnation upon 
themselves. But there must, of course, have been a ground for 

1 Polanus, in Syntag. Theologias Christianas, page 1078, (1G24.) 



460 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



this judgment, with its consequent and inevitable production of 
their sinful state — a ground which must be traceable either to their 
own agency or to the Divine efficiency. But, as Dr. Hodge af- 
firms, that it is in no possible or conceivable way traceable to their 
own agency, and that they had done nothing to bring it upon them, 
there is consequently no avoiding the conclusion on these princi- 
ples that it must be traced to the Divine will or agency alone ; and 
thus, by this monstrous perversion of the truth of God, the au- 
thor of holiness becomes the author of " enmity against God," 
and the peccati ultor the auctor peccati. 

Dr. Hodge would escape this consequence, and still retain his 
theory ; but that this is beyond the range of possibility has been, 
we think, fully shown. Let us, however, advert to these attempts. 
In replying to Dr. Baird he says: " The np&roy ipeodo? of such spec- 
ulations is, that moral principles or dispositions owe their character 
to their origin, and not to their nature. It is assumed that innate, 
hereditary depravity cannot have the nature of sin in us unless it 
be self -originated ; hence some assume that we existed in a former 
state Others assume that humanity is a person, or that per- 
sonality can be predicated of human nature as a generic life 

Others, again, as Dr. Baird, distancing all competitors, insist that 
we performed the act of self -depravation thousands of years before 
we existed. All these are not only gratuitous, but impossible as- 
sumptions, to account for the admitted fact that innate corruption 
is truly sin, which they say it cannot be unless it have an origin 
in an act of their own. Things are, however, what they are, no 
matter how they originated. If a man is black, he is black, whe- 
ther he was born so or made himself so. If he is good, he is 
good ; if bad, he is bad, whether he is the one or the other by 
birth or self-determination." "So all these false theories assume 
that inherent corruption cannot have the nature of sin unless self- 
originated." To account for this fact [that we are born in sin and 
are by nature the children of wrath], to reconcile it with the jus- 
tice and goodness of God may be as difficult as to account for the 
origin of evil." " The Bible solution of the difficulty is infinitely 
better than this [Dr. Baird' s]. Our depraved nature is the penal 
consequence of Adam? s sin, not of ours? This is the substance of 
the lengthy paragraph touching the matter. 1 

1 See Princeton Review for 1860, pp. 388, 389. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



461 



The question before us pertains not to the nature of inherent 
corruption, but to responsibility for its actual existence. It is 'not 
whether inherent corruption be sin, but (1), whether a moral 
agent, in whom such corruption exists, can be righteously held 
accountable for its existence within him if it can be in no way 
traceable to himself; and (2), whether inherent sin is to be traced 
to a human or a Divine origin, seeing there can really be no 
middle ground in regard to it. The former of these inquiries we 
have disposed of in the earlier part of this section ; and in respect 
to the above cited remarks of Dr. Hodge upon the latter it is suf- 
ficient here to say, that it is true "things are what they are, no 
matter how they originated;" but if God create a man "black," 
God, and not the man, is the author of that blackness ; and as sin, 
according to the reiterated averment of Dr. Hodge, does exist in 
the posterity of Adam anterior to their moral accountability, and 
yet (as he likewise affirms) did not and could not originate with 
them, no alternative is left to him but to ascribe its existence to 
God as its author. We ask not that the Doctor explain why the 
race is born in sin ; but it is one thing not to be able to explain 
this, and quite another thing to attribute, as he by his theory does, 
logically and directly, the origin of sin itself to the Divine effi- 
ciency. 

He affirms that sin, or " a sinful state " (which he denominates 
both sin and punishment), exists in man anterior to both intel- 
lectual and moral action; and affirms likewise that the guilt of 
Adam's sin is imputed to Adam's posterity ; and that though mo- 
ral corruption is the penal consequence of this imputation, the race 
is not thereby made inherently sinful, but that the imputation 
affects simply their deprivation of the supernatural gifts possessed 
by Adam in his original state. This is, in substance, the expla- 
nation, on which, however, we shall offer no further criticism. 
But granting the representation, we ask, whence originates the 
sinful nature which, as he declares, each individual possesses ante- 
rior to all voluntary agency, i. e., in infancy? It is a state of 
moral corruption, and the individual has not yet acted so as to ap- 
propriate it ethically, or to bring it upon himself as the consequence 
of being deprived of those supernatural gifts. Who, then, is the 
procuring cause of this moral, but involuntary corruption ? It is 
the merest evasive trifling to answer by saying, " If he is corrupt, 



\ 



462 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 

he is corrupt, no matter how he became so." This might, per- 
haps, be allowed, if given by a writer as a reason for ignoring the 
whole subject of inquiry ; but it is not proper when, as in this in- 
stance, he, being unwilling to encounter his own conclusion, or 
the conclusion to which his argument had led, offers the remark 
as a reason for ignoring further inquiry, after having, by clear 
logical implication, charged the authorship of sin upon the Divine 
efficiency ! And we again, therefore, press the question, Who is 
the procuring cause of the creature's involuntary but inevitable 
corruption? Not he himself, of course. A merely forensic im- 
putation of Adam's guilt could not produce it in him prior to the 
exercise of his voluntary agency, or self -appropriation of that guilt 
in some way. This is conceded. But as yet he has not appro- 
priated it in any way (as Dr. Hodge alleges), being wholly inca- 
pable of either intellectual or moral action. So that in no con- 
ceivable sense does he bring upon himself this moral pollution; 
and Adam's guilt, or sin, being purely a peccatum alienum, could 
not, of itself, have produced it; and yet it not only exists, but 
holds a controlling power in the subject in whom it does exist, as, 
e. g., in infants. Whence, then, is it ? Dr. Hodge's explanation, 
therefore, does not relieve his theory ; and we are brought back 
to the legitimate conclusion, that that theory necessarily refers our 
sin. to God as its origin and author. 

The Doctor makes likewise a formal effort in his recent work 
to escape this conclusion. It is as follows : " The doctrine of ori- 
ginal sin [that is, the doctrine as he maintains it] attributes no effi- 
ciency to God in the production of evil. It merely supposes that 
He judicially abandons our apostate race, and withdravis from the 
descendants of Adam the manifestation of His favor and love, 
ichich cere the life of the soul." 1 

In scanning the force and relevancy of this statement, in its re- 
lations both to the theory and the question directly before us, it is 
in point to ask, Whether what is here alleged by Dr. Hodge is, or 
really can be, all that is conveyed by his perpetually repeated af- 
firmations, that spiritual death, moral corruption, and all the calam- 
ities of life, are penal inflictions upon the race for the personal sin 
of Adam ? God merely withdraws " the manifestations of His 
favor and love ;" ana. in this, even before our voluntary agency 

'Theology, Vol. II., page 253. 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



403 



commences, consists the imputation, the ''judgment unto condem- 
nation," and the positive penal infliction of spiritual death. Are, 
then, these calamities (as Dr. Hodge here asserts them to be) 
merely the result or consequence of a judicial abandonment, or of 
withholding the divine favor and love ? — while he constantly names 
them judicial in flictions ! If they are merely the result of such 
abandonment, how, without the divine efficiency, can those results 
reach and take hold upon the sinless and (as yet) involuntary race f 
— (for such Dr. Hodge asserts them to be) — for before the race 
begins to evince intelligence (as he constantly affirms) those results 
are found in full and abiding operation. If only the results of a 
judicial abandonment of the sinless, how (we ask for the fiftieth 
time, perhaps) are those results brought to take effect upon the 
race, since, according to Dr. Hodge, the race does not and cannot 
bring them upon itself ? They are inflicted, therefore, but by 
whom ? Neither Adam nor the devil could thus inflict them. 
But Dr. Hodge insists that they are judicial inflections} And if 
they are, is it not an abuse of language to endeavor to represent 
such a doctrine as "merely supposing that He judicially abandons 
our apostate race, and withholds from the descendants of Adam the 
manifestations of His favor and love ?" Can such inflictions, posi- 
tive, direct, and tremendous as they are, be, in any sense, the mere 
result of withholding the divine favor and love from those who 
had not, as Dr. Hodge declares, entered upon their intellectual 
and moral being (i. e. responsibility) ? How could such mere with- 
holding affect them thus fearfully when they, according to his un- 
varying representations, could no more realize, intelligently or 
morally, either the incoming or indwelling of inherent corruption 
than could so many stocks or stones % In what way can the em- 
ployment of such language be justified in the connection ? For to 
admit that this withholding affected them efficiently before moral 
agency commences, would be not only to concede a preposterous 
self-contradiction, but the admission would at once render the con- 
clusion inevitable, that Gocl is indeed the procuring or efficient 

1 " The evils which they suffer are not arbitrary impositions, nor simply the 
natural consequences of his apostasy, but judicial inflictions. The loss of ori- 
ginal righteousness, and death, spiritual and temporal, under which they com- 
mence their existence, are the penalty of Adam's first sin." (Theology, Vol. 
II., page 196.) 



464 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



cause of our sinful state ; for if these sins and calamities are 
brought upon us by a positive or direct divine infliction, from no 
ill-desert of ours, and before moral agency commences, God is 
alone the efficient author of that state in which the confessedly 
sinless creature finds itself thus placed. So that this attempted 
exculpation can in no way relieve the theory of this obvious conse- 
quent, and from the righteous charge of being in vital antagonism 
to the truth of God. 

And then, again, says Dr. Hodge, in this attempted explication: 
It is the judicial abandonment of " an apostate race /" and this he 
affirms in the very face of his exegesis of Romans v., wherein he 
alleges that to admit any subjective ill-desert in us as the ground 
of the original imputation and abandonment, would involve the 
necessity of admitting subjective desert as the ground of imputing 
to us the righteousness of Christ for justification. We have 
already, in a previous section, exposed the fallacy of this assump- 
tion, and in all sober thought, What is to be made of such at- 
tempted ratiocination ? But passing it, we may well, in view of 
his remark, ask, If the apostasy of the race were, as he states, the 
reason for this abandonment, when did these subjectively sinless 
beings apostatize, seeing they "came into existence" under the 
imputation and its consequent curse? and how, moreover, are they 
innocent or sinless when judicially abandoned, and yet apostate 
when their actual existence commences ? For if apostate, and if 
abandoned because of that apostasy, it follows that they then had 
subjective guilt or ill-desert ; and if they had no such demerit they 
were not apostate when abandoned, and therefore could not have 
been abandoned for their apostasy. But passing this also, the 
direct point is : Iloio were they brought into a state of apostasy ', 
who, before their moral agency commenced, were, as Dr. Hodge 
affirms, in u a sinful state?" And we again press the pertinent 
inquiry, Who brought them into that condition? Not they them- 
selves, of course, and Dr. Hodge everywhere denies that they did. 
The theory, therefore, leaves no alternative possible, but to refer 
the apostasy to God as its efficient source and origin. And then, 
still further, this theory, as stated already, affirms their apostasy 
to be the effect of the gratuitous imputation of apeccatum alienum, 
and that they are sinless anterior to that imputation, and likewise 
that this imputation and its penal consequences are the direct 



THE THEORY AND ITS ETHICS. 



465 



judicial act of God Himself. How, then, with the slightest de- 
gree of truthfulness, can He be likewise represented as abandon- 
ing them because they are apostate ? It may be of use to pursue 
this a little further. 

Dr. Hodge, as we have shown, has a lengthy argument, in 
"which he labors to prove that, "apostasy being an act of self- 
determination, it can be predicated only of persons; and if the 
apostasy of Adam can be predicated of us, then we existed as 
persons thousands of years before we existed at all." And he 
adds : " If any man says that he believes this, then we think he 
deceives himself, and does not understand what he says." 1 Such 
is his argument on the point. And yet in the foregoing endeavor 
to exculpate his theory from the charge of making God the author 
of sin, he represents the abandonment and sinful condition of the 
race as the effect of this same apostasy which his theory affirms to 
Iiave occurred after we had possessed an original state of innocence 
frorn which we apostatized, and yet that it occurred previous to 
our entrance upon that "sinful state'' which attaches to us, not 
only in infancy, but before we are persons at all, or had " come 
into existence" So that, while we were in a state of innocence, 
God abandoned us, by imputing to us a foreign sin, and in conse- 
quence of that abandonment we apostatized, and that yet He 
abandoned us in consequence of that very apostasy, which aban- 
donment and apostasy brought us into a sinful condition before 
we were "persons at all," or had "'come into existence!" We 
offer nothing on such an exposition and inculcation of a funda- 
mental doctrine, but submit it to our readers, and only add that 
the whole procedure presents a practical concession of Dr. Hodo;e, 
that his theory cannot be maintained without referring sin to God 
as its author, otherwise he would not, for the time being, have 
thus abandoned it, and involved himself in such inextricable con- 
fusion and absurdity in endeavoring to escape that charge. 

Such, then, are the results of this labored effort at exculpation. 
But as he has summoned the late Dr. F. C. Bauer, of Tubin°-en. 
to aid him in the extremity, I offer a word thereon in conclusion. 
In another connection we have adverted to the use he has at- 
tempted to make of this writer; but here refer to it in order to 
show that, even should that use be allowed, Dr. Hodge's theory in 

1 See Princeton JReview for I860, pp. 856, 357, and also our Section 5, above. 
30 



466 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



relation to the matter before us could gain nothing by the ad- 
mission. 

In assailing the doctrine of our participation in the first sin, Dr. 
Hodge says : " Sins, of which we know nothing, which were com- 
mitted by us before we were born, which cannot be brought home 
to the conscience as our sins, can never he the righteous ground of 
punishment, any more than the acts of an idiot" 1 And he makes 
this allegation at the same time that he affirms that a peccatum 
alienum, which was committed before any of the posterity were 
born, and which cannot possibly be brought home to the conscience 
as our own sin, is nevertheless the righteous ground of our con- 
demnation and punishment. But this only en passant. Then, on 
a later page, and in reference to the same, he says : " The assump- 
tion that we acted thousands of years before we were born, so as to 
be personally responsible for such act, is a monstrous assumption. 
It is, as Bauer says, an unthinkable proposition; that is, one to 
which no intelligible meaning can be attached." 2 He had pre- 
viously cited Bauer, in a similar connection, as saying : " What is 
an act of a non-existing will, an act to which the nature of sin is 
attached, although it lies entirely outside of the individual con- 
sciousness ? Does it not destroy the idea of guilt and sin that it is 
imputed only because it is transmitted by ordinary generation." s 
Dr. Hodge cites this as against Bellarmin's remarks on the trans- 
mission of original sin ; but the point aimed at is the Church doc- 
trine of our participation in the guilt of the fall, and the trans- 
mission of sin by generation, and the animus in citing it is plain ; 
for Dr. Hodge expresses his full concurrence and approval by 
the words, " To this Bauer properly remarks," and so endorses 
the assault of this bitter foe to the Church doctrine, who also 
denied and ridiculed the idea of a personal God ! 

We have fully shown that this style of ratiocination is without 
force when applied to the disclosures of Divine revelation, and 
that it can possess none whatever which may not, with equal 
truth and propriety, be claimed on behalf of the forecited argu- 
ments of Socinus, Morgan, Channing, Emlyn, and others against 
the doctrine of the Trinity, and of the two natures in the person 
of our blessed Lord. 4 But should it all, for the sake of the argu- 

1 Theology II., p. 216. 2 Ibid. p. 244. 3 Ibid. pp. 178, 179. 
4 See Sections 26 and 27, above. 



CONCLUSION. 



467 



ment, be even admitted, what relief could such a speculation fur- 
nish Dr. Hodge's theory against the fearful and just impeachment 
of making God the author of sin ? Admitting that the proposi- 
tion, affirming our participation in the first sin, is as "unthink- 
able " as he alleges it to be, would that concession in any way re- 
lieve his theory ? It could not. So, granting Dr. Hodge all the 
aid that Bauer can render, his theory must continue to labor justly 
and righteously under the fatal charge, which throws it (together 
with its supporters) out of all just sympathy with the Augustinian 
theology, and of the inspired word. It attributes sin, as existing 
in the posterity of Adam, to the efficient productive agency 
of a holy and righteous god ! 

§ 32. The Conclusion of the Work. 
Our argument and its issues are now before the reader ; and . 
though there are other topics of no trivial interest to the theme 
at large, and which, at the outset, we had designed to treat (but 
which the increasing size of the volume has compelled us to omit), 
nothing has been omitted which is really essential to a thorough 
comprehension of the question, so far, at least, as concerns the re- 
lation which the theory of the gratuitous imputation of sin sus- 
tains to the Augustinian doctrine of original sin and its immedi- 
ate correlates. I have propounded no theory, but aimed solely to 
present and defend the recognized doctrine of the Church, and to 
make the discussion one of facts and principles, as indeed it should 
be. The task, indeed, might have been greatly lessened by con- 
fining the discussion solely to some of the leading issues ; but my 
design throughout has been to place in possession of the Church 
the materials necessary to an intelligent decision of the question 
as to w*hat is the Augustinian doctrine of imputation and original 
sin; for there can be little doubt that to the determination of the 
question itself, and in this form of it, (rather than to any attempted 
revision or improvement of its hermeneutics,) the energies of the 
Church will be chiefly directed in the mighty conflict which is al- 
ready being inaugurated between Faith and the Protean forms of 
modern unbelief. The labor thus imposed was much more arduous, 
but cheerfully undergone. And it will be abundantly recompensed 
if the result shall be that they who already have been inculcating 
the new doctrine (i. e., new in our midst) and Socinian exegesis. 



468 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



be required to meet fairly the facts in the case, and either to show 
that those facts are false, or falsely alleged, or inapplicable, or to 
recede from their attempt to incorporate such pernicious errors 
with the received doctrine of the Calvinistic church. But, as re- 
gards all the leading facts in the case, I claim, from my knowledge 
of the subject, to be fairly entitled to speak as I have spoken — 
plainly and decidedly, yet leaving the intelligent reader to decide, 
from the facts themselves as presented, whether such claim be en- 
titled to candid and scholarly consideration. 

As to the tone and spirit of the work, I may be permitted to 
remark also, in passing, that in regard both to what I have said, 
as well as to the manner of saying it, I have been, so far as my 
motives were ascertainable, actuated solely by the desire, through 
an earnest vindication of essential truth, to subserve the interests 
and well-being of the Church of God, and have throughout en- 
deavored to express myself with all the consideration and kind- 
ness which are compatible with fidelity to His cause. If, how- 
ever, I have in any instance failed in the endeavor, it will be to me 
a source of real regret. In encountering the magisterial peremp- 
toriness and denunciation, and attempts at sarcasm of Dr. Hodge, 
and which were pointed directly against the positions sought to 
be elucidated and defended in my former essay, expressions may 
have escaped me not sufficiently guarded to prevent misconstruc- 
tion. 1 But I am not aware that any such have occurred, and trust 
there are none. The subject at the present time, and in its direct 
relation to our Church, is one of insurpassable interest, especially 
in view of Dr. Hodge's recent reiteration, not only of his assault 
upon the views of his brethren, but of his own theory and exegesis 
of Romans v. 12-21. ISTor does it evince either intelligence or 
discretion on the part of any to attempt to represent the tneme as 
a mere metaphysical subtlety, or a reproduction and discussion of 
"dead issues," and the like. Such and similar representations 
have been made in every age for the purpose of paving the way 
for the insidious introduction of pernicious errors into the fold of 
Christ, when the supporters of those errors deemed it expedient 
to avoid, if possible, the investigation of the issues which their 
own course of procedure had called into being. Truth, however, 

1 Habet quendam aculeum contumelia, quern pati. prudentes ac viri boni 
difficillinie possunt. — Cicero. 



CONCLUSION. 



409 



is always essentially fearless, and always scorns to descend to any 
such purblind, degraded, and contemptible maneuvering. 

The presentation of the claims of this subject to the considera- 
tion of the Church, as exhibited in the Theology of Dr. Breckin- 
ridge, and in the Elohim Revealed of Dr. Baird, and, still later, 
in the thorough and masterly exegesis of Dr. Schaff, viewed also 
in connection with the constantly repeated asseverations of Dr. 
Hodge, that the issue between those views and his own is funda- 
mental to the Protestant theology, 1 all -evince, in a way not to be 
mistaken, the transcendent importance of the subject itself, and 
also that the Church owes it to God and herself, and to the souls 
of perishing men, to utter a prompt and decided deliverance in re- 
gard to it. Dr. Hodge, in his recent work, has made no open 
attempt to meet the issue as presented by Drs. Schaff and Breckin- 
ridge, nor as presented in the Danville Review, though our Church, 
and all the churches in our land which accept the Augustinian 
theology, had great reason to expect that he would at least en- 
deavor to sustain his utterances against the very serious exceptions 
which his »previous allegations had challenged. But he therein 
has merely reiterated the statements and arguments of his earlier 
representations, which have been not only thoroughly refuted, but 
which, from their first appearance, and by not a few of the learned 
and intelligent in our communion, regarded as unauthorized and 
erroneous. But to expect that mere reiteration like this should 
settle such a discussion, is certainly without precedent outside the 
Vatican. 

We have, in the Preface, alluded to the fact that earnest and 
good men, in our communion during some years past, have ex- 
pressed the apprehension that our Church is approximating an 
apostasy from the truth as held by her martyrs and confessors at 
the beginning. Neither facts nor doctrines are specified in illus- 
tration (so far as memory now serves me) ; but the impression 
seems to have been disclosed to their inner consciousness, and to 
be widening and deepening, though in the general, they seem un- 
able to analyze it intellectually, or to trace it clearly to its source. 
My own convictions in relation to that matter are expressed in 

1 In the Princeton Review for 1870, pp. 239-262, an attempt is made to 
qualify these statements, so far as Dr. Sehaff is concerned. But we may learn 
from Dr. Hodge's Theology since issued (and as cited on our previous pages), 
the real value of any such intimation. 



470 



ORIGINAL SIN" AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



the present work, the aim of which is to free the great cardinal 
doctrine of original sin (as always entertained by the Church), 
from the unfounded odium which Dr. Hodge's theory must (if 
accepted) so causelessly bring upon it by his wholly unauthorized 
statements and speculations. But the error of a gratuitous im- 
putation of sin, if logically carried forward, can really leave no 
leading doctrine of the system of grace unmodified to a serious 
extent and impaired. Dr. Hodge does not seem to have traced it 
to its inevitable sequences, and is, apparently, so far unaware of 
them as to have presented views of a number of other doctrines 
(as we have illustrated by an example or more), which can as little 
comport with his theory itself as that theory could consist with 
the subjective criminality of the race as the ground of the imputa- 
tion of the Adamic sin. But the history of error in every age 
will sustain the remark, that this theory being fully adopted and 
logically conducted to its legitimate results or sequences by those 
who, unrestrained by the fear of God, may possess what ability 
and learning are requisite to render that adoption consistent 
throughout, cannot fail so to modify as to subvert all the essential 
doctrines of the system. 

In this connection, and as a further illustration of the existing 
importance of giving immediate attention to the subject, it will 
be in point to offer an additional fact or two. In our sections 
18-22, we have shown that the exegesis of Rom. v. 12, IS, 19, as 
insisted on by Dr. Hodge, had been adopted by the Socinians and 
others in order to subvert the Church doctrine of original sin. 
The fact is unquestionable, and certainly it is both portentous and 
alarming, that already this exegesis, on the ground simply that it is 
taught by Dr. Hodge, has, even without rebuke, been constituted 
a test of orthodoxy in our Church. Dr. Baird, in his " Rejoinder 
to the Princeton Review" 1 furnishes an instance which assuredly 
is entitled to profound consideration. Upon his application to one 
of our Presbyteries for admission to membership (having a cer- 
tificate of dismission in good standing from a sister Presbytery), 
he was, in the course of the consequent examination, asked: 
"What relation do we sustain to the sin of Adam?" Dr. Baird 
answered : " We sinned in him and fell with him," and the examina- 
tion then proceeds as follows : 

1 Published by Joseph M. Wilson, Philadelphia, (1860.) 



CONCLUSION. 471 

" Question. Do you mean anything more than that we are re- 
garded and treated as though we had sinned in Adam ? Ans. I 
mean that we sinned in him, and are therefore so treated. Q. 
But how did we sin in him ? A . We were in him seminally, as 
our root and cause, and, as members, were intrinsically involved 
in a true and proper responsibility for the action of our head. Q. 
How is this parallel with gratuitous justification ? A. In the first 
place, the parallel fails, by the whole Extent of the difference be- 
tween law and grace Q. But Dr. Hodge teaches that we 

did not really sin in Adam, hut are only so regarded and treated. 
A. I am aware such is his opioion, but I do not so understand the 
Bible nor our constitution. This avowal, continues Dr. Baird, was 
the signal for a storm of denunciation against the examinee, in 
which he was stigmatized with almost every name of heresy which 
is most obnoxious to the Reformed churches." (Bp. 3, 4.) 

Such a fact is painfully admonitory ; for thus was this exegesis, 
which, as we have so fully shown, had been elaborated and em- 
ployed by the Socinian school for the very purpose of subverting 
& vital doctrine of our theology — an exegesis which has always 
been directly refuted and emphatically discarded by the Church, 
made the touchstone of orthodoxy in relation to that very doc- 
trine ; and an able and learned divine subjected to the accusation 
■of fundamental error because he discarded it, and concurred de- 
cidedly with the Church in its repudiation. Under what category, 
then, are they to be ranked who, in view of this and similar facts, 
not only contend that there is no ground for alarm or apprehen- 
sion, and still persist in endeavoring to suppress all further dis- 
cussion of the subject % Are they mere drivellers, whose degrad- 
ing servility has been " holding men's persons in admiration be- 
cause of advantage," until both heart and intellect have become 
besotted % Or are they not rather enemies in disguise, who are 
seeking the subversion of the doctrines of the Church we love? 

The ten years consumed by Dr. Hodge in preparing for the 
press the lectures which, during so long a professorship, he had 
been delivering to his classes might have been prolonged until 
doubled or quadrupled, and yet have been vainly spent in the en- 
deavor to discover in the recognized theology of the Reformation 
it recognition of the theory and exegesis which he has been incul- 
cating as Calvinistic upon our Church and ministry. A careful, 



472 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



long-continued, and sufficient investigation of the facts renders 
imperative the duty of affirming the statement in this unequivocal 
and decided manner. Dr. Hodge has not been able to discover 
any tangible authority for such a procedure, or for his accusation of 
heresy against the supporters of the doctrine he has impugned. 
He obviously, at the outset, expected to discover such recognition ; 
but his publication itself evinces the result of his protracted investi- 
gation. And in none of the symbols of doctrine which he cites 1 has 
he been able to discover even the shadow of such a scheme, nor has 
he been able to specify even one truly representative divine of the 
Church who in any way has sanctioned that theory and exegesis. 

In my former essay I adduced, in chronological sequence from 
Zwingle to the late Archibald Alexander, the testimony of a large 
number (including the supralapsarians) of the ablest theologians 
of the Church ; and Dr. Hodge is well aware that that aggrega- 
tion of testimonies made no slight impression upon many who had 
been induced by his representations to suppose that the gratuitous 
imputation of sin was indeed a doctrine of Calvinism ; 2 though 
others did not scruple to denounce both essay and author as need- 

1 He cites them in Latin, but v)hy is not explained. See the citations and 
his summary of their teaching, in Theology, Vol. IT., pp. 228-231. 

2 Even the late Principal Cunningham was misled by these same represen- 
tations of Dr. Hodge ; as also by his egregious misconception of the design 
of Rivetus in preparing his admirable tractate entitled " Testimonies on Impu- 
tation." Principal C. accepts and repeats en masse those misconceptions, and 
then, in respect to that part of the work of Rivetus which was translated and 
published by Dr. Hodge (see Princeton Essays, First Series, pages 195-217), 
naively remarks, that there are some of his testimonies "which can scarcely 
be regarded as sufficiently precise and definite to contradict Placasus' position. ,r 
(See his "Reformers and the Theology of the Reformation," page 380.) My 
former essay carefully pointed out the error of Dr. Hodge which Principal 
Cunningham (in his article of July, 1861,) thus incautiously endorsed. It 
originated in the must unheard assumption of Dr. Hodge that Rivetus pre- 
pared this treatise in defence of the gratuitous imputation of sin ! — a doctrine 
which that illustrious theologian not only discarded, but utterly abhorred as the 
very corner-stone of Socinianism. (See Danville Review for 1862, pages 517— 
541.) But when it is considered that his tractate is a defence of the Church 
doctrine, which teaches that the Adamic guilt in the first sin, and our own 
guilt by participation therein, were imputed to us for condemnation (which 
Placams denied), every testimony which he adduces is exactly in point. Our 
readers may consult the views of Rivetus as expressed by himself by referring 
to Section 9, No. 11, and Section 12, A.. No. 5, and Section 17, B., No. 5, of 
the present work. 



CONCLUSION. 



473 



lessly troubling the Church. To such a depth of degradation had 
their servility descended, that although they knew that the late 
Dr. Breckinridge (to say nothing of others), had, in his "Theology 
Objectively Considered " clearly and cogently exposed the same 
grievous error, they were willing that Dr. Hodge's theory, what- 
ever might be its character, and however baleful the consequences 
of its introduction into the Church theology, should continue- 
therein unchallenged, rather than its supporters should be required 
to explain and defend the positions which he has so boldly and 
boastingly ventured to assume ! " Many " (says Matthew Henry,, 
most truly, on John vii. 13,) " have aimed to suppress the truth 
under the color of silencing disputes about it." But can anything" 
be more criminal than thus to encourage and so perpetuate a fatal 
and soul-destroying error by attempting to suppress the efforts re- 
quired for its exposure ? Should these persons, however, say,. 
" We do not admit it to be error," let them remember that this 
will not excuse them ; for if they could claim a sufficient degree 
of intelligence to have enabled them to investigate the subject 
thoroughly, and had so investigated it, even this would in no way 
warrant the course they have pursued in relation to Dr. Breckin- 
ridge and myself. And then further : Did Arius and Socinus and 
their partizans admit that they were in error ? And what would 
have been the result to the Church had a similar procedure been 
pursued in relation to them ? But, most of all, was GocVs truth 
ever afraid of the light f Does it require or ask the aid of dark- 
ness, chicanery, and calumny ? But so far as the effects or conse- 
quences are concerned, it alters not the case whether such persons 
admit the existence of error or not. An old divine somewhat 
quaintly remarks, that let the physician administer opiates and 
cordials to his patients when cathartics are required, and it need 
surprise no one to see the undertaker at his door. 

It would be in place here to adduce, as another fact in illustra- 
tion of the necessity for prompt and decided action, the unkind 
personal ill treatment (referred to in the Preface) which my for- 
mer essay elicited, and the proscription of both myself and Dr. 
Breckinridge simply on account of our opposition to what we 
could not but regard as the pernicious and fatal errors of Dr.. 
Hodge on this great subject; and last, not least, the persistent 
efforts which are still (to the disgrace of the Presbyterian name} 



474 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



made to prevent the defence of ourselves against the unmerited 
accusations of Dr. Hodge, that we were advocating principles ut- 
terly subversive of the doctrines of our Church, and who now, as 
it appears, would even deprive the writer of the sacred right of 
self-defence against his accusations. But I repeat, that I am un- 
willing to allow anything which might be construed as merely 
personal to mingle with the discussion. True, it may be pleaded 
that, with far less of such provocation, and in matters of far less 
intrinsic interest to the Church, Dr. John Owen has done the like, 1 
as have many other great and good men in similar circumstances. 
And then the events referred to in my own case evince a fixed 
determination that, whether right or wrong, the theology of Dr. 
Hodge must be forced upon the Church, with all its grievous de- 
partures from our recognized theology, and hence would seem to 
require exposure. But well knowing that these matters need not 
be brought forward on my own account — -for my labors and repu- 
tation are in the keeping of the Church, under its great and ex- 
alted Head — I feel no anxiety on that score. Our great and 
glorious Shepherd well knows how to protect those who love Him. 

And finally, how long may we as a church expect to maintain 
our integrity, and serve God acceptably, with such a spirit actively 
.at work in our midst to secure its unhallowed ends, and with the 
aforesaid principles of doctrine and exegesis inculcated upon our 
•candidates for the ministry? Let none entertain the delusion 
that, because appearances may not as yet indicate a falling away, 
there is no danger. Apostasy is rarely the growth of a day or 
year. The germs may lie in the soil long ere the stalk appears ; 

1 Dr. Owen was most persistently villified and calumniated by those who 
were jealous of his abilities and erudition, and though one of the meekest of 
men, he, in the preface to his treatise On Divine Justice, refers to the authors 
of those assaults as follows: "For even all know with what vain arrogance, 
malice, party spirit, and eager lust of attacking the labors of others, the minds 
•of many are corrupted and infected. Not only, then, was it necessary that I 
should anticipate and digest in my mind the contempt and scoffings which 
these bantering, saucy, dull-witted, self-sufficient despisers of others, or any 
of such a contemptible race, whose greatest pleasure it is to disparage all kinds 
of exertions, however praiseworthy, might pour out against me ; but I like- 
wise foresaw that I should have to contend with the soured tempers and pre- 
judiced opinions ot others, .... and who, thinking themselves to be the men, 
and that wisdom was born and will die with them, look down with contempt 
<upon all who differ from them." (Works, Vol. IX., p. 330.) 



CONCLUSION. 



475 



but the longer they thus lie, the deeper and deadlier will the root 
imbed itself in that soil. Then comes the stalk, and then in full 
development the destroying tare. In fact, apostasy is always 
thorough and irreclaimable in proportion to the slowness and si- 
lence of its growth and maturing. And the principles against 
which we have here sought to place the Church upon her guard 
have a well-defined history, nor have they ever been really adopted 
by any portion of the professed followers of Christ without ulti- 
mating in still more grievous and fatal departures from essential 
truth. And as the integrity of the Church as a depository of 
sacred truth, to which she has been so faithful in the past, must 
be preserved, what remains but that, in the kindest and most con- 
siderate manner, consistent with firmness of purpose and fidelity 
to her exalted Head, she take due and timely action in the pre- 
mises. Dr. Hodge, after an allowance of so many years to review 
and reconsider the whole subject, has been fully and most kindly 
heard ; and now it is left to the Church to utter her voice, and, in 
language which cannot be misunderstood, to say, whether the doc- 
trine he has now repeated and affirmed, on the issue in question, 
is indeed her doctrine, or whether, as we, in view of the facts in 
the case, do most solemnly aver it to be, a fundamental and fatal 
departure therefrom. Those now on the stage of life and action 
are invested with the responsibility of giving utterance to this 
decision, and must meet that responsibility, either by approving 
or disapproving the doctrine and exegesis referred to ; for a failure 
to disapprove will, of course, be construed into a tacit approval, 
especially when hereafter viewed in connection with the undiscri- 
minating laudations which incompetency has been uttering over 
bis recent work ; and thus their power for good or for evil must be 
perpetuated to those into whose hands must soon devolve the in- 
terests and the welfare of the Church we love. 

If, then, the facts appertaining to the great theme before us 
be as herein represented, I need only add, that with the prepara- 
tion of this work the determination of the issue ceases longer to 
be a special concern of mine. I have felt irresistibly called upon 
by the voice of Providence to make it a special concernment, and 
bave therefore done all I could in order to prepare the way of the 
Church for such determination, though, at the same time (and the 
reader will permit me to say it), my spirit has been a thousand 



476 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



times deeply saddened, as the thought has occurred of the heart- 
felt anguish which cannot but fill the souls of God's dear children, 
if brought to the conclusion that they have been so sadly misled 
in this matter, as they must have been if the things pertaining to 
it are as here presented. But that labor is now finished ; and in 
view of all the facts in the case, as herein so fully brought for- 
ward, the whole matter now is, and henceforth must be, between 
the Church herself and Him whose sentence ere long will irrevo- 
cably evince whether they to whom her welfare is instrumen- 
tally intrusted have been faithful to the hallowed interests com- 
mitted to their charge. 



APPENDIX. 



Note A. 
Referred to on page 4. 

Dr. Buchanan? s misapprehension in regard to "legal fiction" 
his disagreement with the views of Dr. Hodge on gratuitous im- 
putation, and his own errors touching the active obedience of Christ. 

There ought, however, as it appears to us, to be some recogni- 
tion here of what seem to be obvious allusions to Dr. Breckin- 
ridge's theology, and to my former essay by the justly celebrated 
and excellent Dr. James Buchanan, of Scotland. 1 He, indeed, 
names neither, but the allusions cannot well be mistaken, and are 
made in a style which may indicate either that the author (under 
the Princeton influence) could not deign to dignify those produc- 
tions by a direct and open reference to them, or that, without 
giving ostensible ground for a rejoinder, he would make the im- 
pression that the specifications to which he adverts are grievous , 
errors, and that he had refuted them. A critical eye, moreover, 
must, as it would seem, perceive that these remarks are not so 
much the legitimate outgrowth of his argument, as in apparent 
response to some unannounced expression of a desire that he would 
lend the influence of his great and honored name to discounte- 
nance that which he has here excepted against. The tone and 
language, for example, of pp. 334-338, seem very like a stepping 
aside from the line of his discussion to fire a platoon or two at 
those who speak of the gratuitous imputation of sin as a theory, 

1 See The Doctrine of Justification, by James Buchanan, D. D., published 
by T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh, (1867.) Since this note was prepared, Dr. 
B. has been called to his heavenly rest. The tone of some of the remarks, in 
view of that event, has been softened, but the truth rigidly demands that the 
discussion of the principles involved in the statements of that excellent man 
should not on that account be withheld. 



478 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

and who employ for the purpose of designating it, the phrase legal 
fiction. 

As to the former, a more thorough acquaintance with the the- 
ology of the Reformation would have taught Dr. Buchanan that 
it is rather late to except against the use of the term theory in 
designating the dogma referred to. For it has always been so 
regarded by the churches of the Reformation, since Pighius and 
Catharinus presented the theory (in the Tridentine Council) as an 
exposition of the doctrine of original sin. To designate any Scrip- 
ture announcement by such an appellation would be highly in- 
decorous and improper. But this alleged doctrine is not such^ 
and the Reformers never regarded it as such, but have always 
condemned and denounced it as an unsupported and pernicious 
theory; and those who adopt it have no right to demand that 
such application of this term should be now disused. 

As to legal fiction (fictio juris), Dr. Buchanan seems to have ob- 
tained a very indistinct conception of the meaning of the phrase 
in theological usage, and as employed by Breckinridge and my- 
self. And without once attempting to meet the issue as to the 
propriety (or the contrary) of its use and application in this in- 
stance, he occupies several pages in dilating upon sundry evils and 
their opposites which may result from legal fiction (as though any 
one ever questioned these facts), and in stating what things may 
be so denominated. The point, however, which, either before or 
after indulging in this train of remarks, Dr. B. should have met 
(that is, since he deemed it expedient to introduce the topic), had 
been clearly stated by Dr. Breckinridge as follows: "It is in- 
finitely certain that God would never make a legal fiction a pre- 
text to punish as sinners dependent and helpless creatures who 
were actually innocent :" 1 a remark directed against the new doc- 
trine (that is, new in Calvinistic theology) of the gratuitous im- 
putation of sin, and in defence of the doctrine universally received 
by the Church. And if Dr. Buchanan had been at the pains to 
examine, he would have ascertained that all the distinguished re- 
presentative divines to whom Dr. Hodge had referred as sustain- 
ing his theory and its exegesis of Rom. v. 12-21, really repudiate 
both, and recognize a moral and objective basis for the imputation 

1 The Knowledge of God Objectively Considered, pp. 498, 499. (Carter &r 
Brothers, N. Y., 1858.) 



LEGAL FICTION. 



479 



of the first sin of Adam to his posterity. This doctrine Dr. 
Buchanan is certainly at liberty, along with Dr. Hodge, to reject 
and denounce, should he see proper to do so. 1 But it is funda- 
mental to the Augustinian theology, which never loses sight of the 
moral and objective ground of the imputation, the rejection of 
which is eminently perilous to the whole system of grace, as we 
have shown, especially in Sections 30 and 31 of this work ; and 
they, therefore, who reject it must not claim to stand upon the 
platform of the Reformation doctrine. Nor can the prerogative 
be conceded to any member of our communion, first to reject this,, 
her approved doctrine, and then to charge error and 'heresy on 
others for persisting to maintain it. The whole question is one^ 
purely of fact, and to the facts in the case the appeal should be 
made. 

Since Dr. Buchanan, therefore, has thus assailed those who oc- 
cupy the position referred to, our fair and candid readers will not 
deem it indecorous if we avail ourselves of the occasion he has 
furnished to remind that worthy and excellent person that he 
should have been more careful in examining the subject of his 

1 I ought to remark here that though Dr. Buchanan thus seems to accept 
Dr. Hodge's doctrine, he, in explaining his own views, clearly appears to re- 
gard it as seriously erroneous. For example, he says: "It (the doctrine of 
Placaeus; i. e., of mediate imputation) affirms the imputation of personal 
guilt arising from inherent depravity or actual transgression, and in this re- 
spect it teaches a solemn and momentous truth. For the direct imputation of 
the guilt of Adam's first sin is not exclusive of the additional charge of per- 
sonal guilt in the case of every individual of his race [i. e., infants and all), 
and it is of the utmost practical consequence that this fact shoidd be distinctly 
received." (P. 279.) And again, on pp. 281-2: "A similar perversion may 
be, and has been made of the doctrine of original sin, as if we suffered- 
only on account of Adam's guilt, and not also on account of our personal 

depravity and disobedience There can scarcely be a greater or more 

dangerous error than to suppose that the guilt of Adam's first sin is the only 
guilt with which we are chargeable, or that it is [chargeable] exclusive of 

the personal guilt of individuals But the doctrine of Scripture, while 

it affirms the direct imputation of the guilt of Adam's first transgression to 
his posterity, and of that only, for he was their representative with reference 
merely to the one precept of the covenant — affirms also the transmission of 
hereditary depravity arising from the loss of original righteousness, and the 
corruption of his whole nature by sin." This certainly settles the question,, 
as it is the direct opposite of making our inherent depravity the penal con- 
sequence of a mere peccatum alienum, or foreign sin. 



480 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

animadversions, and not have taken for granted that they are in the 
wrong who resist the attempted identification of this theory and 
exegesis with our Church doctrine. Nowhere can that theory 
with its exgesis be found in connection with Calvinistic theology, 
as presented in its doctrinal symbols and by its approved divines, 
from the days of Calvin and Knox until the existing effort of Dr. 
Hodge to incorporate them therewith. *Nor can Dr. Buchanan 
adduce a single instance to the contrary in any of the great repre- 
sentative divines to whom botli he and Dr. Hodge have so in- 
cautiously undertaken to appeal. And, in all kindness, I would re- 
mark, that this issue is not to be determined by putting on orthodox 
airs, and assuming a spirit of denunciation, but simply by a refer- 
ence to fact. There is an admitted and fundamental antagonism 
between the theological system comprising the theory and exegesis 
of Dr. Hodge and the system which he assails. In the general, 
Calvin, Molinaens (or Du 'Moulin), Bivetus, F. Turrettin, and 
Owen are referred to. Can Dr. Buchanan show T , then, in any way 
that will justify such reference, that this theory, with the exegesis 
of Romans v. by which Dr. Hodge would support it, was received 
by any of these illustrious divines \ We affirm directly that he 
cannot, and that they all rejected it ; and that Dr. Hodge is the sole 
author of its claim to identification with our theology ; and that 
the Church has hitherto, and in the most decided and emphatic 
manner, always discarded it as a pestiferous heresy, and that, 
therefore, Dr. Buchanan ought not to have united with Dr. Hodge 
in his most uncalled for and most unkind accusations against breth- 
ren who had investigated the facts, and who propose to resist any 
fundamental change in the cherished doctrine of our communion, 
unless adequate proof be adduced that such change is beyond 
serious question warranted by the word of God. 

And then further (and we offer the remark from no unkindness 
to that excellent man), Dr. Buchanan should have made himself 
more familiar with his subject before venturing to utter any such 
sentence of condemnation. We offer this, not in the captious, ill- 
natured spirit of fault-finding, but simply because he, having lent 
his influence and honored name to strike down his brethren, who 
in the fear of God are endeavoring to rescue His Church from an 
impending and fearful apostasy of doctrine, it becomes a necessity 
that the real weight of that authority, in its actual and concrete 



LEGAL FICTION. 



481 



relations to the Reformed theology, should be duly understood and 
appreciated. We shall, however, in illustration confine our re- 
marks to specifications whose topics have a manifest and intrinsic 
relation to the general subject of our work. But his treatise lacks 
fundamental investigation in regard even to the doctrine of justi- 
fication itself as inculcated in the times of the fathers, and of the 
scholastics, and likewise at the era of the Reformation, though we 
design not to expatiate upon all these particulars. Such a history 
as his purports to be should, in this day, be the result of primary 
investigation, if its aim be to impart information that may be ac- 
cepted and referred to as reliable. 

For example : As to Molinseus (Du Moulin) " assisting to pre- 
pare the canons of the Synod of Dort " (see page 174), Dr. Buch- 
anan certainly knows that the French churches were not repre- 
sented in that Synod. Molinseus and Rivetus were appointed as 
delegates from those churches, but after they had started on their 
journey to Dort were recalled by a peremptory order of the 
French king, and forbidden to proceed. Molinaaus, some time be- 
fore the assembling of the Synod, had prepared a paper in the 
form of a confession of faith, a portion of which was subsequently 
laid before that body and read at its one hundred and forty- third 
session, held on April 29th (new style), 1619, ten days previous to 
its final adjournment. No man then living was held in higher re- 
pute by the Synod than Molinaeus ; but as he was obliged by the 
king to return to his pastoral charge in Paris during the whole 
time of the sessions of that body, it is calculated to make an errone- 
ous impression to affirm without qualification that " Molineeus as- 
sisted in preparing the canons, and they were afterwards received 
without objection by the Church which he adorned." He had 
written to James I. (as stated by Dudley Carlton, in his letter to 
the Archbishop of Canterbury, January 24, 1618,) on the subject 
of a general confession for all the Reformed churches, to be com- 
posed by this Synod, and seeking a mutual toleration between the 
Calvinist and Lutheran communions ; and it was by the command 
of James that the specimen above referred to was sent privately 
to several members of the Synod. And this was about the amount 
of assistance which he rendered. 

And then, moreover, what reliability can there be upon state- 
ments wherein announcements like the following are found ? " Til- 

31 



482 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

enus, Professor at Sedan, introduced also the views of Arminius 
on some of the five points;" that is, previous to the year 1613. 
(See pp. 175, 463). The remark, whether designedly or not, has 
an indirect bearing on the general subject before us ; but it is im- 
possible to characterize adequately its inaccuracy, and that of the 
other statements relating to the matter ; and they are the more as- 
tonishing, as a very slight inspection of the original authorities 
would have made the inaccuracy manifest. If the facts were of 
sufficient importance to be adverted to at all, they certainly should 
have been represented accurately. 

About the beginning of the seventeenth century, the Marshall de 
Broillon invited Tilenus to Sedan, for the purpose of imparting 
reputation to that seat of learning; and while performing his 
duties there as professor of theology, he wrote very pointedly 
against the errors of Arminius and his followers. Some years 
later, and while the Synod of Dort was in session, he published, 
at Geneva, his completed and most admirable system of theology, 1 
and which, ever since his day, has been regarded and cited by our 
divines as one of the very best and ablest summaries of Calvin- 
istic doctrine. And as a merited rebuke of the flippancy with 
which persons who ought to be better informed on the subject 
refer to the views of this eminent divine, it will suffice to remark 
that Rivetus, in 1646, cites this very work in his catalogue of 
Testimonies on Imputation (against Placaeus), and that Wende- 
line, in 1633; employs it as one of the most approved sources of 
his own most able system ; and (omitting many others) that even 
Vcetius, who had been a member of the Synod of Dort, places it 
next to Calvin's Institutes, when prescribing the reading of the 
younger theologians. For example, in the preface to the first 
volume of his Selectee Disputationes (Utrecht, 1648), he says: 
" Quibus postea provectiores et jam concionibus formandis vacantes, 
de nostro consilio, adjungunt lectionem Syntagmatis Tileni et In- 
stitutionum Calvini, posterioris etiam in ministerio ad annos ali- 
quot continuandam." And he, moreover, places the study of these 
two works after the perusal of the works of Gormar, the Synop- 
sis Purioris Theologize, Maccovius, Ames, Cluto, Ursinus and Pa- 
reus, as giving the finish to their theological reading. And such 

1 It consists of three parts, only the first two of which had been previously 
published in the year 1606. 



TILENUS. 



483 



has ever been the exalted esteem entertained for the work by our 
leading divines. Late in the year 1619, either with or without 
reason, Tilenus felt himself aggrieved, and resigned his professor- 
ship, and subsequently became identified with the Arminian party. 
And in 1620 Camero held a discussion with him at L'Isle on the 
co-operation of grace with the human will. 1 But even then he 
did not deviate so seriously or fundamentally from his former 
faith as they have done who have abandoned the Augustinian doc- 
trine of original sin for the aforesaid theory of gratuitous impu- 
tation, which has always been as decidedly rejected by the Cal- 
vinistic church as any of the views which Tilenus now favored. 

Then, further, and in the same connection (see p. 463), Dr. 
Buchanan informs us that " Tilenus was answered " (that is, in re- 
gard to those vieivs of Ar mini us which he had introduced(!)) "by 
P. Du Moulin, in the Euodatio of the five points, in 1613;" that 
is, six years before he issued the aforesaid and completed edition 
of his highly prized system of Calvinistic theology ! Kow, every 
accurate student of the ecclesiology of these times knows that the 
dispute between these eminent men had reference alone to the ef- 
fects of the hypostatical union, and had no other relation to Cal- 
vinistic theology. The theme, it is true, is extensive, but let the 
following facts be taken into the account : James I. of England, 
who held them both in high esteem, requested that they would 
adjust their dispute; and it was adjusted through the intervention 
of the Xational Synod of Tonniens (in 1614), each one retaining 
his own mews, and each acknowledging the other as orthodox. And 
hence it has happened that the work prepared in reply to Tilenus 
by Molinseus (and of which the manuscript still exists) never has 
been published. 

The efforts of Dr. Buchanan to brand Tilenus as tin Arminian 
at this time, are based upon the conceded fact that he coincided 
with Piscator (of Herborn) in his view of the active obedience of 
Christ (a view which Arminius himself strongly opposed!), and 
betray a still more surprising want of acquaintance with the doc- 
trine of justification as exhibited in the Eeformed theology, and 
the representation of which he ought never (in such a treatise as 

1 See Arnica Collatis, etc., in Opera Cameronis, pp. 606-708 (Geneva, 1642). 
and also the approval of it by the Leyden divines, in page 709, and also by 
Wallaeus in his Opp. Tom. II., page 256. 



481 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

his purports to be) to have taken at second hand. There are few 
topics in the older theology which have been by certain writers in 
our own day more inadequately treated, and in concluding this 
note we shall offer a few remarks in relation to its historical 
aspect. 

The distinction between the active and passive obedience of 
Christ, in the matter of our justification before God, was first 
suggested by George Karg (or Parsimonius), a theologian of 
Onoldin, or Von Anspach, in his thesis written in 1563, and 
which he subsequently (in 1570) submitted to the College of Pro- 
fessors at AYittenburg. The distinction, however, during those 
years seems to have awakened considerable interest in the schools 
of Germany, and, though there appears to have been no public 
discussion of the subject, theologians of course expressed their 
views in regard to it ; and Piscator himself is said to have obtained 
from Ursinus, in 1566, the views which he subsequently inculcated 
touching the imputation of the active obedience. When Ursinus 
wrote the Catechism (in 1562) the distinction was as yet unknown; 
but during the period when he was delivering his expository lec- 
tures (1563-1583) it came quite generally into vogue ; and hence 
it happens that, though the Catechism itself (though written by 
Ursinus) does not recognize the distinction as thus made, his ex- 
position, in which he agrees with Piscator, does. (See ad Quaest. 
56 and 60.) The College of Professors at Wittenburg, however, 
to whom Karg, in the year 1570, had submitted the thesis, replied 
not to his arguments, but enjoined that he should continue in the 
doctrine of his preceptors ; and as Walch (Comment, de Obedientia 
Christi Activa) says, he readily yielded, and not only returned to 
his meus recta veraque sententia, but even solemni formula errorem, 
quern antea foverat conclemnaret. 

It will be observed that the objection made by these theologians 
was not to a theoretical distinction between obedience by acting and 
obedience by suffering, which has been always acknowledged ; but it 
was against the application of that distinction, by endeavoring to 
make it concrete or practical in its relation to justification, and which 
none of the divines of the Reformation had ever before attempted, 
and which, moreover, the Scriptures nowhere recognize. Hence 
it is not surprising that in the whole Church, Lutheran and Cal- 
vinist, no open exception was taken to the decision pronounced in 



Christ's active obedience. 



485 



the case of Karg by the Wittenburg faculty. But when, some 
seven years later, the Formula Concordia introduced the distinc- 
tion in its concrete form, the active obedience became directly, 
and, as it were, causally associated with the believer's title to 
heaven, and the passive obedience with his deliverance from the 
curse ; and the matter soon excited the keenest controversy — the 
Lutheran church in general accepting the distinction in this form, 
and the Calvinists, as a body, rejecting it. And it was directly 
condemned by the Synod of Gap, in 1603, and by that of Eochelle 
in 1607, and by the Synod of Dort in 1618-1619. Nor is it any- 
where recognized in the Westminster symbols of doctrine. 

It had now, however, become a necessity that our theologians 
should, in their theological explications, take the matter under 
consideration ; and Piscator promptly took ground against the 
position assumed by the supporters of the Formula of Concord. 
And while he says, "Hae dua3 (ut ita loquor) obedientise Jesu 
Christi accuratissime distinguendse sunt, quippe diversse," he 
maintained that the active obedience or personal holiness of Christ 
was essential to the performance of His mediatorial offices ; and 
that it was His passive obedience or sufferings which effected our 
redemption, and through or on account of which we are justified ; 
and that, as the remission of sins was through the redemption 
thus achieved, and implied a reception into the Divine favor, there 
was no necessity for inventing any other ground of our acceptance 
than the atoning death of Christ. And in this view he was 
sustained by Ursinus, Parens, Camero, Tilenus, vVendelinus, and a 
host of others ; 1 while Gomarus opposed him herein, and sustained 
the aforesaid position of the supporters of the Formula, who 
assumed that the passive obedience only delivered from the curse, 
and that the active imparted the title to heavenly felicity. The 
controversy led to this speculative refinement, which many of our 
own theologians have since accepted, though, as we have seen, the 
divine word does not recognize it, nor even the theology of the 
Church until the period referred to. Arminius was opposed to 
making the distinction at all, and consequently rejected the views 
of both Piscator and Gomar. 

Piscator, who was originally a Lutheran, and had been obliged 
to fly from Strasburg and to resign his professorship there on ac- 

1 See the American Biblical Repository for October, 1838, article VII. 



486 "original sin and gratuitous IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

count of his Calvinistic proclivities, took the lead in this contro- 
versy against the supporters of the Formula, and made great 
efforts to disseminate his views ; and the subject was thereupon, 
as above stated, finally brought before the French National Synod 
of Gap, in 1603, which, after due deliberation, directed that 
" letters shall be writ to Master Piscator to entreat him not to 
trouble the Church with his new-fangled notions," which was ac- 
cordingly done. It was again called up at the Synod of Rochelle 
(1607), in whose records we have the following notice : " Whereas 
Dr. John Piscator, Professor in the University of Herborn, by 
his letters of answer to those sent him from the Synod of Gap, 
doth give us an account of his doctrine in the point of justification, 
as that it is only wrought out by Christ's death and passion, and 
not by His life and active obedience, this Synod, in no ivise ap- 
proving the dividing causes so nearly conjoined in this great effort 
of divine grace, and judging those arguments produced by him for 
the defence of his cause weak and invalid, doth order that all the 
pastors in the respective churches of this kingdom do wholly con- 
form themselves in their teaching to that form of sound words 
which hath been hitherto taught among us, and is contained in 
the Holy Scriptures, to-wit : That the whole obedience of Christ, 
both in His life and death, is imputed to us for the full remission 
of our sins and acceptance to eternal life ; and, in short, that this, 
being but one and the selfsame obedience, is our entire .and perfect 
justification." And, in the same connection, reiterates, "That we 
are justified before God by the imputation of that obedience of 
our Lord Jesus which He yielded unto God His Father in His 
life and death ;" and they, moreover, assure " the most illustrious 
Lord John, Earl of Nassau," (in which Herborn is situated,) " that 
no person shall be suffered to exasperate Dr. Piscator by any 
public writings ; and also, that if any one hath heretofore done it, 
he had no commission for so doing from us," etc. 1 

The letter of the Synod of Gap to Piscator, together with his 
reply, were published in 1604, and may be found in Nos. 67 and 
68 of the Epistolw Praistantium ac Eruditorum Virorum, pp. 
121-125, (Amsterdam, 1704), or his letter itself as summarily 
given in De Moor, Vol. III., p. 960. 2 

1 See Quick's Synodicon. 

2 Mosheirn remarks (Cent. 17, § II.) that in the Synod of the Isle of France 



THE ACTIVE OBEDIENCE. PAREUS. 



487 



Pareus, who was but a youth of seventeen when Karg started 
the distinction, and who carefully examined the whole affair from 
its incipience, wrote (in 1598) a little work in four chapters, 
(which neither Bauer nor Walch appear to have read,) entitled De 
Justitia Ghristi activa et passiva, in which he treats the subject 
very ably, but greatly laments that the distinction had ever been 
accepted in treating the doctrine of justification. A brief extract 
or two will be here in place. He says: "Haec questio secum 
traxit aliam de forma justificationis nostrae, sitne remissio pecea- 
torum tota an dimidia nostra justiflcatio. Et quantum recordari 
possum haec controversia circa annum 64, primum inter Marchiacos 
quosdam Theologos agitati ccepta est : deinde anno 70 interventu 
Academies Witembergensis utcumque sopita, vel potius suppressa. 
Prius vero Ecclesiis Evangelicis ignota fuit neque in scriptis 
Lutheri, Melancthonis, Zwinglii, Calvini, Martyris, Husculi, 
Hyperii, aliorumque hujus seculi Theologorum quicquam istius, 
quod sciam, disceptatum legitur : sed recepta fuit omnium consensu 
simplex ilia scripturee doctrina, nos morte Christi justificari cum 
propter earn habeamus remissionem peccatorum," (Cap. I.) Then, 
in Cap. II., after adverting to the Patristic view, and citing 
Augustine and Ambrose, he says : " 2s~ec addo plures. Possem 
quoque affere consensum Lutheri, Melancthonis, Zwinglii, (Eco- 
lampadii, Hyperii, Ursini, Oleviani, etc., a quorum doctrina de 
justificatione latum unguem non discedo." The distinction, there- 
fore, in its concrete form, — that is, as an attempt to apply the 
speculative distinction in elucidation of the doctrine of justifica- 
tion, whether in the way that Piscator did, in denying that the 
active obedience is imputed (along with the passive), or as Gomar, 
and many theologians since have done, in assigning a specific part 
in our justification and salvation to the active obedience as such, — 
has nothing to sustain or even countenance it in the theology of 
the Reformation. Though, at the same time, it is true that, when 
the adherents to the Formula Concordice did insist on making the 
distinction concrete in the matter of justification, nearly all the 
leading Calvinists of the time, as Ursinus, Pareus, Tilenus, etc., 
took the opposite ground, — that the active obedience pertained to 



in 1615, the views of Piscator on this subject^were pronounced free from error. 
But he should have stated that this was not a national, but only a provincial 
synod. 



488 ORIGINAL SIX AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

the necessary qualifications of our adorable Redeemer for fulfilling 
the offices of His Mediatorship. 

Such, then, is the ground on which Dr. Buchanan and others 
have attempted to charge the views of Piscator on this subject as 
Arminian, and as furnishing them occasion also for assailing Til- 
enus as an Arminian, as early as 1606. The subject need not be 
dwelt upon, however ; but it will n#t be out of place in the con- 
nection to advert to the high regard in which Piscator was every 
where held by his Calvinistic cotemporaries, as an offset to such 
remarks as those of Drs. Hodge and Buchanan in relation to him. 
Omitting, however, the encomiums of Owen and Twisse, and a 
score of others, a single allusion to the Synod of Dort will be suf- 
ficient for our purpose. 

In the session of December 29, 1618, Episcopius, having ad- 
verted in a tone of sarcasm to certain representative divines of the 
Church in his address to the Synod, was requested to state ex- 
plicitly to whom he alluded, but refused, whereupon Bogerman 
(the president), addressing him, said : " If you will not name them 
we will. You have referred to those venerated and illustrious lu- 
minaries of the Church (the memory of whom is blessed) — Zwing- 
lius, Bucer, Calvin, Beza, Zanchius, Piscator, Perkins." 1 The 
Synod all silently concurred in this estimate. And if the afore- 
said representation, that Piscator's views favored Arminianism, is 
to be accepted, we have the edifying spectacle of a synod of the 
ablest divines of the age, and which had been convened expressly 
to place the Church on its guard against Arminian errors, concur- 
ring with its president (one of the most stern and rigid impugners 
of Arminianism that ever lived) to hold up, as one of the great 
luminaries of the Church, a man. whose doctrine really involved 
those errors, and was favorable to their promotion ! 

The foregoing facts will enable the reader to appreciate Dr. 
Buchanan's remarks on pp. 170-173 (of his work), respecting the 
actual position of Arminius (and on this entire question) ; and 
. also the thirfl paragraph of p. 175, in which the great body of the 

1 " Si vos non vultis eos nominare, nos faciemus. Norninastis venerando 
illos viros, et clarissima ecclesia? lumina, quorum memoriain benedictione est r 
D. Zwinlium, D. Bucerum, D. Calvinum, D.NBezam, D. Zanchium, D. Pisca- 
torem, D. Perkinsium."' (Vide Epistolee, etc., ut supra, No. 316). Piscator 
died in 1625. 



THE ACTIVE OBEDIENCE. 



4:89 



Calvinistic church, during the first century of the Reformation, is 
constructively presented as leaving a door open for the believers 
personal obedience as the ground of his future hope, inasmuch as- 
while it ascribed the remission of sins to the passive obedience of 
Christ, it excluded the imputation of his active, as the ground of 
our title to eternal life, for no such doctrine as is here asserted, 
i. 6., that the active obedience is the ground of our title to eternal 
life, is ever found in the Reformed theology (as above shown) 
until many years after the death of Calvin. It is nowhere taught 
in the early confessions, nor by the Synods of Gap, Dort or West- 
minster. There is, indeed, a plain ground for the abstract distinc- 
tion itself ; but, as above stated, there is no ground therein for any 
such division or practical application of the distinction as is here 
attempted, and as Dr. Shedd lias repeated in his History of Doc- 
trines (Yol. II. p. 341), and which Dr. Hodge has cited and very 
justly disapproved. (Theology, Yol. III., p. 149 ; see also pp. 
14*2, 143, 150). Dr. Hodge himself, however, has done Piscator 
% the injustice of adopting from Bauer his statements regarding him, 
and even his quotations. (See Bauer^s Die Lehre von der Yersbh- 
nimg, pp. 352.) 

The position of Piscator in this matter, even should we allow 
that his mind in the controversy may have been stimulated by the 
remembrance of his former ill treatment at Strasburg, ought not 
to be viewed as simply aggressive. It was, if not wholly, yet 
mainly defensive as against the innovation attempted by the For- 
mula and its supporters. In explaining what he regarded as the 
real doctrine of the Reformation he, however, erred by admitting 
and applying the distinction as practical in the matter of the sin- 
ner's justification; but there is no ground whatever for attributing 
to him (as Bauer dreams) a design to modify the Church doctrine 
of satisfaction. Bauer conceived that this doctrine might undergo 
some modification from Piscator's standpoint, and thereupon attri- 
butes to him the intention of effecting that object ; but he has not 
been able to adduce from the writings of that eminent theologian 
anything to justify such an intimation. Dr. Hodge has likewise 
erred by adopting, from this same writer, his own representations 
regarding Piscator's views and intentions ; and then (in Theology, 
Yol. III., pp. 1S2-185) he represents the views of Piscator as a 
departure from those of the Reformation, on the ground that he 



490 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

•denied that the active obedience is imputed for justification, and 
represents the French Synod as condemning his doctrine in this 
regard. But (1), the divines of the ^Reformation neither affirmed 
nor denied that the active obedience was imputed, but simply 
maintained, without any recognition of the distinction itself be- 
tween the active and passive obedience, that Christ's whole obedi- 
ence was imputed; and Piscator's views, as above shown, were the 
views of such men as Ursinus, Pareus, Tilenus, etc. And (2), as 
to the French Synod, they did condemn this view; but on what 
ground? By adverting to our foregoing references to its action, 
and the citations defining its own position in the matter, the 
reader will be able to answer this question. Dr. Hodge intimates 
that the Synod held that the active obedience is imputed ; but this 
makes an utterly erroneous impression, for they denounce the view 
simply on the ground that it attempts a practical or concrete sev- 
erance between the active and passive obedience — a severance 
which they wholly repudiated ; and the decision, therefore, equally 
involved a condemnation of the doctrine advanced by Dr. Gomar 
and the supporters of the Formula, and as subsequently insisted 
on by many others of our later theologians, and even by Dr. Hodge 
himself. In the National Synod of Privas (1612) the following 
language is employed in declaring their doctrine : " Our justifica- 
tion consisteth, not only in the forgiveness of sins, but also in the 
imputation of His active righteousness" This language, however, 
was regarded by the National Synod of Tonniens (1614) as de- 
parting from the Church doctrine, and in their deliverance on the 
subject they return to the original representation'. They say: 
The form of doctrine which ought to be received and taught in 
the churches of this kingdom, according to the Scriptures, is, that 

man cannot be justified but by Jesus Christ our Saviour, 

who, being incarnate, was obedient to His Father from the first 
moment of His birth unto the last of His ignominious death upon 
the cross, having most perfectly, both in His life and death, ful- 
filled the whole law given unto men, and that particular command- 
ment imposed upon Him by His Father, of suffering and giving 
His soul a ransom for many ; by which perfect obedience we are 
justified, because it is counted ours by the grace of God, and ap- 
prehended by that faith which He gives unto us." 

A very clear statement of the question respecting the active and 



THE ACTIVE OBEDIENCE. 



491 



passive obedience may be found in the works of "Wallseus, Tom. 
II., pp. 368, 369, and 420. Turrettin, in Loco XIY., Quaest. 13, 
gives an admirable view of the whole subject. See especially § 12, 
■"Quia scriptura nunquam obedientiam Christi ita videtur distin- 
guare in partes," etc. De Moor, Yol. III., cap. 20, §§ IT, 18, is 
quite full and satisfactory. See also Dr. H. B. Smith's edition of 
Hagenbach, Yol. II., § 268, p. 358; and Principal Cunningham's 
Reformers, etc., pp. 404, 405. 

Another serious misstatement of Dr. Buchanan, and one for 
which he is indebted to Dr. Hodge, is the assertion on pages 279, 
498, that Stapfer followed Placaeus in his views of mediate impu- 
tation; but as we have considered this in the body of our work, it 
is unnecessary to dwell upon it here, or upon many others equally 
unaccountable. And they are, moreover, set off >by not a few of 
lesser importance, as, e. g., "The Hopkinsian theology, which 
sprung up in America early in the last century" (p. 190). Dr. 
Hopkins was born in 1721, and died in 1803. His theology — the 
theology of the sect — was first published in 1793. Again: "De.(!) 
H. W. Beecher " is announced as the author of the Conflict of Ages, 
and "B. Y., pp. 362-516." of that work are referred to (p. 495). 
There is on the same page, however, the following paragraph, to 
which we fully subscribe, though not in the sense intended by the 
venerable author, who has therein unwittingly expressed what we 
regard as singularly true: "On the new views which have sprang 
up in America on the imputation of Adairis guilt, see Dr. Board- 
man on ' Original Sin,' and three papers on ' Imputation,' in the 
Princeton Theological Essays." Though we never have found 
leisure to read the whole of the first named of these works, yet 
we doubt not that it accepts and would defend the new view as 
fully as do the Essays themselves. 

XOTE B. 

{Referred to in § 8, page 64, and repeatedly in other parts of the 

work.) 

Man Created in the I:mage and according to the Likeness of 

the Triune God. 
The allusions to this topic in the text as referred to above, and 
the question therein suggested as to the meaning of Gen. i. 26, 27. 
could not be treated in extenso in the body of the work, nor with 



492 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

the degree of fulness which its relation to the argument requires,, 
and we therefore devote the following note to its consideration. 
And as introductory I here repeat the question, Who can say that 
the emphatic announcement that man was " made in the image, 
according to the likeness of God," may not find its true solution 
in the very principle of unity and plurality (?'. e. of plurality in 
unity) expressed in the aforesaid explanatory principle, to the con- 
sideration of which we are so constantly led by the argument, and 
which was communicated to the inner consciousness of the Church 
from the very beginning of her existence, as all her declarations 
on the subject before us evince, bat which in its very nature 
seems as inexplicable by us in the present stage of our being as is 
the same distinction in the divine nature ? But if the two, i. e. the 
fact and the principle, do stand thus related, it is not needful that 
we understand the modus itself in order to justify our application 
of the facts in the solution and illustration of those grand dis- 
closures of divine revelation to which they are so eminently 
adapted. We purpose, therefore, to examine briefly the various 
interpretations which have been offered of this passage, as prelimi- 
nary to the application which, we think, may be fairly made of 
it in relation to the topic in question. In full the passage is as 
follows : " And God said, Let us make man in our image, after 
our likeness ; and let them have dominion over the fish of the 
sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and 
over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creep- 
eth upon the earth. so god created man in hls own image, 

IN THE IMAGE OF GoD CREATED He HIM ; MALE AND FEMALE CRE- 
ATED He them." And our first remark is, that — 

I. The plurals us and our are not here plurals of intensity. 

God, in the execution of His eternal purpose, having completed 
the work of creation as assigned to the first five days and part of 
the sixth (as recorded in Gen i. 1-25), now, as Zanchius observes,, 
represents Himself in this attitude, " Thus far we have made 
heaven and earth and all their creatures, ?iow let us make man in 
our own image, according to our likeness." The literal rendering 
of the Hebrew nt^j (Jcal future), is faciemus, we will make; 
which I mention, not as objecting to our authorized version, which 
expresses the thought in our tongue with equal consonance to the 
Hebrew conception as would tjie literal rendering, but that the un- 



PLURAL INTENSITY. 



493 



learned reader may have the exact shade of thought as presented 
in the original. 

It is of course God Himself who says, " Let us make man," etc., 
and not Moses who says it for Him. And our first point of in- 
quiry here is in relation to the plural forms contained in the pas- 
sage itself ; i. e., Do they come under the category of what gram- 
marians term the pluralis excellentice and majestaticus ? 

Until comparatively a recent date there had been amongst evan- 
gelical expositors no question on this point, for the Church has 
always regarded the plural forms here as referring to the personal 
distinctions in the Godhead. And the earlier deviations from 
this view owe their origin, not to any application of the recognized 
principles of grammatical interpretation, but to theological sym- 
pathy. For example, those of Sabellian and Rationalist proclivi- 
ties have developed a pluralis majestaticus here, in order to set 
aside the recognition which the passage affords of a distinction of 
personality in the Godhead ; but the Jews and Arians, while they 
deny such distinction, do not, however, in 'this instance generally 
apply the rule, for the former mostly hold that God here addresses 
His " house of judgment " (j^m:) ; and the latter, Christ, as the 
chief of all His creatures. Some recent evangelical expositors (as 
the late Professor Stuart) accepted the pluralis majestaticus, 
though at the same time conceding that the modern usage, i. e., 
subsequent to the captivity, cannot determine the usus loquendi of 
the" Hebrews. But both the Sabellian and Unitarian expositors 
.all fail to reconcile the manifest incongruity of supposing that 
God, as a single hypostasis, in speaking to Himself would employ 
this plural at all, or that, having in this instance employed it, He 
should afterwards use the singular, as they admit is done in re- 
peated instances. 

Now the plural is expressly used in designating God as the 
•Creator of men. See the Hebrew of Eccles. xii. 1, " Thy Creators;" 
Job xxxv. 10, a My makers;" Isa. liv. 5, "For thy makers are thy 
husbands" See also Malachi i. 6, "If I be a master (masters), 
where is my fear?" and Prov. ix. 10, "The fear of Jehovah is the 
beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy ones (D'tsnp) 
is understanding." In the Hebrew parallelism it is obvious that 
holy ones is exegetical of Jehovah. (See note in Junius and Tre- 
mellius.) Compare likewise chapter xxx. 3. And then, further, 



494 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 



to each of the persons of the Godhead the creation of man is dis- 
tinctly and directly ascribed. See, for example, Ps. c. 3 ; John L 
3, and Job xxxiii. 4, which facts are abundantly sufficient to show 
that the attempted application of the pluralis majestaticus here 
is wholly arbitrary, and that on this point the faith of the uni- 
versal Church is to be respected ; for that the Old Testament 
does not recognize the doctrine of the Trinity is simply false, and 
entitled to no consideration. 

The few following passages (out of many) will evince the unani- 
mity of the early Christian Church in their view that these words 
should be regarded as recognizing the distinction of persons in the 
Godhead; and we adduce them not as authoritative in questions 
of exegesis, but as testimony affirming what were the views of the 
Church on this subject in her purest days ; for it was uniform 
from the time of the apostles until the middle of the fourth cen- 
tury, and of course, is therefore entitled to deference and respect- 
ful attention. 

Barnabas says : "And for this the Lord consented to suffer for 
our sake, though He was Lord of the world, to whom He (the 
Father) said on the day before the completion of the world (con- 
stitutionem sseculi), Let us make man after {or for, ad) our image 
and likeness" (Epist. cap. 5.) 

Hermes : " The Son of God was indeed more ancient than any 
creature, so that He was present with His Father in the council 
for forming the creature." (Lib. III., Similit. 9, § 12.) 

TheophiluS) of Antioch : " He directed these words, Let us make 
man, to none other except His "Word and His own Wisdom." (Ad 
AntoL, lib. II.) 

Lrenceus : "His Word and Wisdom, His Son and Spirit, are al- 
ways present with Him, to whom also He spake, saying, Let us make 
man" etc. (Lib. IT., cap. 37, and lib. V., cap. 15.) "Man was 
fashioned after the image and likeness of the uncreated God, the 
Father willing His creation, the Son ministering and forming him, 
the Holy Spirit nourishing and increasing him." (Lib. IV., cap. 
75.) 

Tertullian : " Nay, because His Son is ever present with Him, 
the second person, His Word, and the third, the Spirit in the 
Word, therefore He spake in the plural, Let us make man in our 
image" (Adversus Praxeam, cap. 12.) 



PLURALS OF INTENSITY. 



495 



Novation : " Who does not acknowledge the Son to be the 
second person after the Father, when he reads that it was said by 
the Father to the Son, Let us make ?nan" (De Trinit. §§ 21, 25.) 

Origen: "To Him also spake He (the Father), Let us make 
man after our image" (Contra Celsum, lib. I.) 

Athanasius : "Who is this that God here converses with? To 
whom are these notifications and determinations of His pleasure 
directed ? Not to any of the creatures already made, much less 
to those things which were not yet created, but undoubtedly to- 
some person, who was then present with the Father, with whom 
He communicated His counsels, and whose agency He employed 
in their accomplishment. And who could this be unless His 
eternal Word ? With whom can we conceive that the Father 
should hold this conference, except with His Son, the divine 
Logos, that Wisdom of God, then present with Him and acting* 
with Him, in the creation of the world, and who was in the be- 
ginning with God, and was God? and who says of Hiinself, When 
He prepared the heavens I was there" etc. (Horn. 9, in Genesis.) 

Augustine (De Civitate Dei, lib. 16, cap. 6) says: "Had God 
only said, Let us make man, it might, perhaps, be pretended, as 
the Jews say, that He spoke to the angels, and employed them in 
forming the body of man and other creatures ; but inasmuch as it 
immediately follows, after our image, it is profane (nefas) to be- 
lieve that man was made after the image of angels, or that the 
image of angels and of God is the same." (See also De Trinitate, 
lib. 10, cap. 10, and lib. 14, cap. 11.) 

Ambrose : " God would not speak thus to His servants, because 
it is not to be thought that servants were partakers with their 
Lord in His works of creation, or the works with their author ; 
and supposing it were admitted that the work was common to 
both God and angels, yet the image was not common" (Epist. 
38, ad Horont., and also lib. VI., Hexam. cap. 9.) 

Epiphanius (Hseres. 23, n. 2) says: "This is the language of 
God to His Word, and Only Begotten, as all the faithful be- 
lieve." And again: "Adam was formed by the hand of the 
Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost." (Ibid. p. 44, n. 4.) 
The statement of this father as to the universality of the patris- 
tical belief on the subject, is fully sustained by the second council 
of Sirmium (anno 351), referred to by Hilary in his book De 



496 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

Synodis, by which it was affirmed that, "If any say that the Fa- 
ther did not speak to the Son, when He said, Let us make man, 
but that He spake to Himself, let him be accursed." (The whole 
creed may be found in Socrates, lib. II., cap. 30). 

In the following centuries, and during the middle ages, the same 
view was entertained by the Church, as we find represented by 
Paschasius, Damascenus, Lombard, and Aquinas, and others ; and 
in the era of the Reformation by Luther, Calvin, and their cotem- 
poraries. Zanchius, referring to this interpretation, says : " Hie 
est verus et simplex sensus horum verborum. Proinde hinc meritb 
colli gunt Patres omnes, et doctissimi quique nostri seculi homines, 
turn pluralitatem personarum in Deo propter verbum Faciamus, 
et propter nomen nostram ; turn unitatem essentise propter ver- 
bum singulare Dixit ac creavit, et propter nomen etiam singulare 
imaginem ac similitudinemr (De Horn. Creat., lib. I., cap. 1 ; 
Opp. Tom. III., p. 483.) 

This learned testimony, as to the views of the early Church, and of 
the divines of the Reformation, fully sustains the foregoing repre- 
sentation ; and we add to it the following of the equally profound 
and learned Dr. Waterland, who, in referring to Gen. i. 26, 27, 
affirms that this text, Let us make man, has been understood of 
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, or, at least, of Father and Son, 
by the whole stream of Christian writers down from the times of 
the apostles. (See Eight Sermons, page 69.) 

The pluralis excellentim, moreover, has nothing to sustain its at- 
tempted application to this passage, and has always been most de- 
cidedly repudiated. Luther, for example, after remarking that 
" We are made after the image of those makers w T ho said, Let us 
make, and that those makers are the three distinct persons in the 
one divine essence, and that we are made after the image of these 
three persons," proceeds to denounce as ridiculous the notion of 
certain Jews who say, "Deum sequi principum consuetudinem 
qui reverentise causa de se in plurali numero loquuntur." (Com- 
ment in Gen. i. 26). And Tayler Lewis, after referring to the 
efforts to set aside the Church interpretation, truly remarks, that 
"Of all these views the pluralis majestaticus has the least support. 
It is foreign to the usus loquendi of the earliest language ; it is 
degrading instead of honoring to Deity, and Aben Ezra shows 
that the few seeming examples brought from the Hebrew Scrip- 



TO WHOM ARE THE WORDS ADDRESSED ? 



497 



•tures, such as Numbers xxii. 6 ; Dan. ii. 36, do not bear it out — 
the latter, moreover, being an Aramaic mode of speech." (In 
Lange, p. 173.) And then further : If the words in Gen. i. 26, 
were really uttered by God (whom the Jews and Rationalists re- 
present as without distinction of personality), then it is simply a 
senile absurdity to pretend that He would employ a pluralis ma- 
jestaticus in speaking to Himself. Or if, as is now gratuitously 
pretended, Moses himself is the real author of the words, and only 
attributes them to God for dramatic effect, then, if the unfounded 
and impertinent suggestion was admitted, it would be well for the 
dealers in presumption to explain the source of Moses' knowledge 
— that it was the custom of kings and rulers to speak in this style. 
We find not the least trace of it in his writings when speaking of 
Melchisedek, Abimelech, Pharaoh, Balak (for Numbers xxii. 6 is 
merely communicative, and therefore comes not under the cate- 
gory), and others. The judges and kings of Israel all employ the 
singular number, and even Solomon in all his glory never dreams 
of employing such a plural. Gen. xi. 7, and Isa. vi. 8, clearly re- 
fer to the distinction in the divine nature, and therefore bear not 
on the point. While Gen. xxix. 27 ; 2 Sam. xvi. 20, and xxiv. 14, 
and 1 Kings xii. 9, and Job xviii. 2, 3, and Canticles i. 4, are all 
communicative, or common to the speaker and his friends, and 
therefore have been very absurdly adduced as illustrations of such 
a plural ; and the modern instances of such usage are of no Aveight 
in determining the question. And then still further, as Lange 
has remarked on the text before us, " It must be noted that the 
plural is carried into the word "JDSya (in our image), etc. This 
appears to go beyond the pluralis majestaticus, and to point to 
the germinal view of a distinction in the Divine personality, in 
favor of which is the distinction of Elohim and Kuah Elohim, or 
that of God and His Wisdom, as this distinction is made (Prov. 
viii.) with reference to the creation." But we need pursue this 
no farther; for there is not the shadow of any ground that is at 
all tenable on which to rest the allegation that us and our are 
here to be regarded as a pluralis excellentice, or majestaticus. 
II. Whom did God address in these words : Let us make man 

IN OUR OWN IMAGE, AFTER OUR LIKENESS, etc. 

The immediate object of the creative power now to be exercised 
is Dnx, man. And God does not here say, Let man he made, as 
32 



498 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

He had said, Let there he light; let there he luminaries in heaven. 
Nor does He order the elements to produce him, as He had com- 
manded the earth to bring forth vegetation ; and the waters, fishes 
and fowls; and the land, cattle and creeping things. But as in 
council, or consultation, He says, Now we will make, or Let us 
make man. • 

Yatablus here very properly says: "But in this place man (din) 
is not a proper name, hut the name of a species. And the singular 
is used for the plwal, for the plural verb is immediately added, 
' Let them rule,' that is, not only let Adam and Eve rule, but the 
race or species. And so in Gen. v. 2, ' He called their name Adam/ 
And in Numbers xxxi. 35: ' And the souls of men (din) {from 
or of women, or, as the Vulgate, of the female sex) who had not 
carnally known man," etc. — a usage which evinces why* the Tar- 
gum, in Isa. xliv. 13, explains dix by nnx, which denotes women, 
or the female sex. 

Now, as the words, Let us make man, etc., cannot, with any 
just reason, be regarded as a pluralis majestaticus, and as some 
who admit this reject the Church view (as above given), and affirm 
that God addresses either one or another class of His creatures, 
and as this view has lately found an able and truly learned de- 
fender amongst the evangelical divines of Germany, it 'will be in 
place here to consider it before proceeding with our argument. 
We refer to Delitzsch, 1 who strongly asserts the possibility that 
the Jewish tradition is founded in fact which states that God here 
addresses his angels, or, as the Jews name it, His House of Judg- 
ment. They differ, however, in their views of the matter; for 
Aben Ezra held that the souls of all men were created on the first 
day, and that God now consulted them ; while Menasseh ben Is- 
rael supposed that he here spake to the elements, though if the 
words Let us make man imply anything, they clearly suppose a 
capacity for consultation on the part of those addressed. But the 
general view of the Jews is that which is affirmed by Delitzsch, 
and in the Targum of Jonathan (or Palestine) is thus expressed: 
"And the Lord said to the angels who ministered before Him, who 

1 We have not access to his commentary on Genesis, but refer to his,Biblical 
Psychology, as translated by Wallis (Edinburgh, 18G6). See Part II., § 7, 
pp. 134-136. All our subsequent references to his views are to this deeply 
learned and most valuable work. 



TO WHOM ARE THE WORDS ADDRESSED? 499 

had beeD created on the second day of the creation of the world, 
Let us make man in our image, in our likeness," etc. 

The manner in which the Church from the first has regarded 
this conception ought not to be overlooked, though we would base 
no argument thereon. Irenseus, adverting to this notion of the 
Jews, and as adopted by certain heretics, says : " Angels neither 
created nor formed us, nor was it in their power to make the 
image of God ; the Logos alone could do this, and no powers dis- 
tinct from the Father of all things. ]STor did God want their 
assistance in making the things which he had determined to create, 
because His Word and His Wisdom, the Son and the Holy Ghost, 
are ever with Him, by whom and with whom He made all things, 
freely and of His own accord; to whom also he spake in these 
words: Let us make^man in our image and likeness." (Lib. TV., 
cap. 37.) 

Luther, in reference to the like attempts to evade this clear re- 
cognition of the plurality of personality in the Godhead, by repre- 
senting Him as now calling into council the angels, elements, etc., 
says: "But (1), I ask, why did he not also do this before, and in 
relation to His other creative acts? (2), How can the creation of 
man pertain to angels? (3), He does not name angels, but simply 
says Us. It is spoken, therefore, concerning Makers and Creators; 
and this certainly cannot be said of angels. (4), This also is cer- 
tain, that in no mode can it be said that we are created after the 
image of angels. (5), And why have we here, Let us make in 
the plural, and He made in the singular, unless that Moses might 
thereby clearly and strongly signify to us that even in the God- 
head and creative essence itself there is an indivisible (insepara- 
bilem) and eternal plurality ? Nor can the gates of hell deprive 
us of this." 

But admitting the claim of the Jews that the Hebrew words 
may include either of the foregoing, — L e., either human souls, or 
the elements, or angels, — the result of their argument would be 
that God here calls upon whichever class may be supposed to co- 
operate in making or creating an image of Himself ; for, beyond 
all question, the words themselves do presuppose efficiency on the 
part of those to whom they are addressed. And further, that man 
must have been created in the image and according to the likeness 
of these human souls, elements, or angels, or at least that he is 



500 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

created after their image as truly as after that of God ; and con- 
sequently that they (whichever He addresses) had been already 
created in His image ; a conception which, setting aside its trans- 
parent absurdity, must render nugatory the whole force of the ex- 
pression in verse 26, which clearly and irresistably implies that no 
creature as yet existing had been made in that image and likeness. 
Delitzsch is obliged to concede this even in regard to the angels 
whom he supposes to be addressed (p. 7 9) ; and in support of it 
claims ex rei necessitate, that angels must have been created in the. 
image of God. Augustine supposed that in a certain sense they 
possessed that image, though he emphatically denies that the 
image is the same as that of God : " Nef as est credere, ad imagines 
Angelorum hominem factum, aut eandem esse imaginem Angel- 
orum et Dei." [De Civit., lib. 16, cap. 6.) Basil likewise sup- 
posed them to possess the image of God (Horn. 10), and the same 
view was entertained by Polanus in the Reformed church (Syntag. 
Theol. page 883), and by others in our day. And as the point is 
important in its relation to the question before us, we shall ex- 
amine it briefly. 

It is a clear and undisputed fact, that the Scriptures never allege, 
in regard to any of the works or creatures of God, except man, 
that they were created in the image of God. And as Delitzsch 
has presented the learning and strength of the argument by which 
the opposite view (so far as regards angels) is attempted to be sus- 
tained, we shall examine his statements in defence of the position. 

He admits (page 78) that the Scriptures directly assert of man 
only that he was so created, but affirms that they say it " in- 
directly of angels." His ground for this is, (1), They are called 
sons of God, Gen. vi. 2; Ps. xxix. 1, and lxxxix. 6; Job i. 6, and 
xxxviii. 7 ; but it is characteristic of a son to be the likeness of 
Him who begat Him." And in a note he adds: "Scripture in 
asserting that the angels are sons of God, declares at the same 
time that they are in the likeness of God, for that which is be- 
gotten always resembles him, ivhich begat. (Compare e. g., 1 John 
iii. 6.") (P. 79.) That is to say, they were begotten, and not 
simply created (unless he would regard begetting and creating as 
the same) ; and if begotten they are the image of Him who begat. 
This, however (and I make the remark with real pain), is hardly 
scholarly; for without any attempt at proof, it assumes as the 



delitzsch's theory. 



501 



very basis of his argument, that {ufo\) in this instance must 
express the specific relation to which he alludes ; in other words, 
that sonship here is a natural relation (resulting from begetting), 
as distinguished from the relation constituted by creation, adop- 
tion, and the like, all of which relations the term is employed to 
signify, Such a premise certainly demands a logical establish- 
ment before it can, with any fairness or even show of reason, be 
urged as the basis of an important conclusion. For let the reader 
observe that the same Hebrew term is employed in the Old Testa- 
ment in the sense of -a>?, puer, juve?iis, and the like, as in Cant. 

ii. 3 ; Prov. x. 5, and is likewise attributed to the subjects of a 
king, 2 Kings xvi. 7 ; and is constantly used to express relations 
like the following: "Sons of the prophets," (1 Kings xx. 35, and 
2 Kings ii. 3, 5, 7), and that relation which persons, who are born 
or reside in any given place or province, sustain to that locality, 
Ps. cxlix. 2 ; Ezek. xxiii. 15, IT, or that sustained by Moses to the 
daughter of Pharaoh, Exod. ii. 10 (also Acts vii. 21, and Heb. xi. 
21) ; and so, too, we have, " Son of my sorrow," " Son of my right- 
hand," etc. And in the Kew Testament we find a like entensive 
usage of oiui. Thus oUn Oeob (D'nVx is applied to the peace- 
makers, Matt. v. 9 (see also verse 43, and Heb. xii. 5-8, and Rev. 
xxi. T); and then we have, " So?is of the kingdom," Matt. viii. 12 
and xiii. 38; u Sons of the bridechamber,"' Matt, ix. 15; Mark ii. 
19; "Sons of the devil," Matt. xiii. 38; " Sons oi thunder," Mark 

iii. 17, "And ye shall be the SOUS ( vl ulu\ ) of the Highest," Luke 
xvi. S (see also chap. xx. 21, and John xii. 36); "Sons of God, 
being the sons of the resurrection" Luke xx. 31 ; "Sons of the 
prophets," Acts iii. 25 ; " they who are of faith are sons of Abra- 
ham," Gal. iii. 7, and iv. 6, 7 ; " So)is of the light and of the day," 
1 Thess. v. 5. These few instances illustrating the extensive 
usage or application of the term may suffice. 

Kow, with such facts before us, it certainly may with reason be 
asked, On what principle Delitzsch assumes to fix the nature of 
the relationship pertaining to angels, so as to justify his claim that 
they are so " begotten " of God as to partake of His image or 
likeness ? By what process has he determined that the relation is, 
in this sense, natural, instead of resulting from creation, adoption 
(in view of the fall of those who sinned), or of residence ? The 
word is employed in all these, and in various other connections ; 



502 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

and should any one claim, in virtue of the aforesaid applications 
of it, that the pupils of the prophets resembled their teachers, or 
the subjects their king, or the natives their country, all would see 
that the inference had no just foundation. But it may be replied, 
that in these instances, there was no begetting, which is true, and 
therefore it is likewise true, that the mere application of the term 
does not, of itself, imply the existence of any such relationship. 
To justify his inference, therefore, Delitzsch must show that, dis- 
tinct from creation, or residence, or adoption, the angels were he- 
gotten of God. His argument requires this ; for, if they are sons 
merely by creation, or adoption, or residence, then, as these neces- 
sarily produce no such likeness to God as he claims for the angels, 
his conclusion is a mere nullity. 

In order to sustain his position, he is obliged also to claim that 
"it is possible" that God, when He said, Let us make man in our 
image according to our likeness, " uses the plural number to com- 
prehend the angels with Himself," and thence he draws the infer- 
ence that " man must therefore have been created after the image 
of God, and of those who already, by creation, bore the image of 
God" which seems to imply that, in regard to intelligent crea- 
tures, creating and begetting alike produce the divine image, which, 
of course, cannot be seriously entertained ; but, passing this, he makes 
no effort to explain how, or in what way, the angels could have 
united with God in this creative act, or why they should have been 
so addressed by Him if they did not or were not to unite therein. 
And the conception, so utterly unsustained, and therefore inadmis- 
sible, he then makes the basis of the inference, that " If man be 
created after the image of God and of the angels, it follows that 
the image of God in man refers primarily to His invisible nature 
and still further on in his argument he employs the same assump- 
tion as a basis to reason from. 

As to the possibility of the truth of this Jewish tradition, our 
readers must determine for themselves. We have no room to 
treat it in extenso, and our aim here is to present the Bible view 
and the recognized views of the Church, and offer a few remarks 
to evince the inconclusiveness of Delitzsch's conclusions. Augus- 
tine, Polanus and others, who held that angels possess the moral 
or ethical image of God, never entertained the thought that the 
Creator addressed them in Gen. i. 26. Luther, whom we have 



DELITZSCTl's THEORY. 



503 



already cited, adds in the same connection the following, di- 
rectly on this point : " Sed sumus facti ad illorum Factor um im- 
agine in, qui dicunt, Factamus. Hi f adores sunt tres distinctce 
persona? in una divina essentia, Harum trium person arum, nos 
sumus imago, sicut post audiemus " (i. e., in verse 27). Calvin 
also says : "Ac omnino ridiculi sunt Judaei, dum fingunt Deum 
cum terra vel angelis coramunicasse sermonem ; terra scilicet op- 
tima consiliaria erat. Minimam, vero tarn prwclari operis partem 
angelis adscribere, dbominandam sacrilegium est. Nos vero ad 
imaginem terras vel angelorum creatos esse ubi reperiunt ? Annon 
Moses statim omnes creaturas diserte excludit, quum refert, ad 
imaginem Dei creatum fuisse Adam? Alii qui sibi acutiores vi- 
dentur, bis insulsi, Deum principum more de se in numero plurali 
loquuntur dicunt. Quasi vero ea barbaries quae a paucis sseculis 
invaluit, jam tunc regnaret in mundo. Sed bene habet quod canina 
eorum improbitas cum tanto stupore conjuncta est, ut stultitiam 
suam pueris prodant. Christiani igitur apposite plures subesse in 
Deo personas ex hoc testimonio contendunt," etc. (In locum.) 

I add in illustration also the remarks of the very learned exegete 
Drusius, who, in reply to the Jewish notion that God, in verse 26, 
addresses His house of judgment, says, "Quaenam domus judicii 
ejus, si non Filius et Spiritus Sanctus ? Nam angeli esse non *pos- 
sunt, quoniam et ipsi inter creaturas. Quomodo enim deliberaret 
de creando homine cum iis qui ipsi creati fuerunt ? Nam creatores 
eos appellare prorsus ddedkoyov est. Creatores autem sunt si una 
cum Deo fecerunt hominem." (Critici Sac. Tom. I.) And thus, 
as all these citations testify, the Church has ever regarded the ex- 
pression let us make as undoubtedly implying the possession of 
creative power by those to whom God thus speaks ; a fact which 
Delitzsch has not attempted either to set aside or account for, but 
which he certainly owes to his exalted reputation as an accom- 
plished scholar fairly to meet and dispose of in its relation to his 
argument. Again : In his JVbtce Major es, Drusius, after quoting 
" Let us make man" and referring to Gen. xi. 7, " Let us go down" 
etc., and to Gen. ii. 18, " L will make thee a helpmeet" etc., adds, 
"Ita modo singulariter, modo pluraliter loquitur." (Ibid. Tom. 
VIIL, page 18.) 

Upon the whole, then, as regards God taking counsel with the 
angels (as the Targum of Jonathan supposes), the expression "let 



504 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

us maker n !f f adenitis, can leave no reasonable ground to doubt 
that whoever is included in this we or us actually took part in this 
creative act : a statement the truth of which has never been in 
any way weakened or impaired by the efforts of adverse criticism ; 
and to say, therefore, that angels are therein included, and yet are 
not to be supposed to take such part, is simply to utter a contra- 
diction. And if God did here address them, then (as the very 
language implies efficiency and co-operation on the part of those 
addressed) the angels assisted in this creative act ; for no sufficient 
reason can be given why they should be thus addressed if they 
were not to co-operate. If they did so co-operate, then of course 
we bear their image. But this is not the only inference, and De- 
litzsch cannot stop here if he would ; for they thus become our 
creators along with God, whom, along with Him, we are enjoined 
to reverence as such (Eccles. xii. 1), and where this would lead no 
words are needed to evince. But it is an inadmissible absurdity 
to suppose that the angels, or any creatures, however exalted in 
the scale of being, should have been invited to aid or co-operate 
with the Creator in producing the image and likeness of the eter- 
nal and incomprehensible Jehovah ! (See in the Greek Matt. xL 
27, and John i. 18.) And it may be that the native lineaments of 
that image, as enstamped upon man by creation (that is, the unity 
and distinction of personality), is still in a great measure incom- 
prehensible, even to the angels themselves, in this image of the 
Triune God. 

And then, on the other hand, if we are to suppose that God here 
merely communicates to angels His purpose to create man, and 
does not invite them to co-operate, then the we or us, if it limits 
the creative act, limits also the likeness (verse 27), and' the con- 
clusion of Delitzsch, that man was created in the image of angels, 
is bereft of the support he would claim for it. And then, more- 
over, it is an inconceivable incongruity thus to intermingle the 
divine and angelic image as constituting the divine likeness ; for, 
as already stated, angels are nowhere, either directly or by impli- 
cation, said to be created in the image of God. The text itself 
has no trace of angels, and the places cited by Delitzsch prove no- 
thing to the purpose. They merely name angels the sons of God; 
but, as we have shown, no such inference can be drawn from the 
mere use or application of that term. 



DELITZSCH S THEORY. 



505 



It is a consideration of force also, that angels, as Delitzsch af- 
firms, were created anterior to man ; and the expression, we will 
make man in our image after our likeness, clearly intimates that 
no creature previously had been made in that image ; i. e., the 
angels having been created as separate existences, or distinct dis- 
united personalities alone ; bat man was now to be created in a 
form different from any other creature as yet called in to. being. 
If, then, the proper personality of Adam and Eve are to be pre- 
sumed to exhaust the meaning of this creative purpose, wherein 
were they created in any respect different from angels ? This 
cannot be ; and hence the image of the Triune God, in which they 
were created, imports more than this, and can find its realization 
(as it seems to me) only in the fact that they were created with 
both a unity and distinction of personality, and as a distinct adum- 
bration of the unity and distinction existing in the Godhead ; and 
hence the Church has ever taught that the man — cnxn — was cre- 
ated, not in the image of either person of the Godhead, but as an 
image of the Triune God. True, she has failed in the effort to 
determine specifically what that image consisted in ; but, as a 
reference to our previous and succeeding citations will show, it is,, 
and ever has been, her assured and settled conviction that the im- 
age in which the race was created was that of the Triune God. 
And hence she has ever affirmed and reiterated the doctrine ex- 
pressed by Augustine on this subject (De Civit. Dei, lib. 16, cap. 
6), part of which we have quoted above. 

Delitzsch's reasoning is, therefore, wholly at fault from the fact 
that angels are nowhere, either directly or by implication, said to 
possess God's image in any such sense as that in which this image 
is attributed to man, as Theodoret insists, who maintains that it 
exists not in angels, but in man alone. Polanus and others, who 
claim that it exists also in angels, attribute to the phrase image 
anal likeness solely an ethical significance, which, as we shall see, 
does not comprehend its full scriptural import, as even Delitzsch 
himself emphatically affirms. For the angels, though possessed 
of knowledge, righteousness and holiness, and though they may 
thus be said, in a certain sense, to bear a resemblance to their 
Creator, are never said to possess His image. And the contrary 
supposition has no exegetical basis, but merely a supposed theo- 
logical necessity. And this, moreover, is both confirmed and illus- 



506 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



trated by the fact that the devils, or fallen angels, are never said 
to have lost the Divine image, though they have lost all those 
features of moral resemblance, while man is said to retain it still, 
even though fallen and utterly depraved by sin. (Gen: ix. 6 ; 1 
Cor. xi. 7 ; James iii. 9.) 

Angels rejoiced over the completed creation (Job xxxviii. 7), 
and, of course, were created anterior to man. And in the creation 
of man (as adverted to in Gen. i. 26, 27) there was, as we have 
said, a clear intimation that no creature previously called into 
being possessed God's image in the true and lofty sense, either in 
the creation of earthly or heavenly things. Hence, as regards 
this image, there was something peculiar in its relation or applica- 
tion to man, — something which was not characteristic of angels or 
of any other creature. They may have possessed moral perfec- 
tions (as many of earth's creatures also do possess natural qualities, 
.as, e. g., sight, hearing, instinct) in a higher degree than man, and 
yet were not created in the image of God. What, then, is that 
resemblance ? It cannot be solely ethical, and therefore must be 
based in their nature itself. The angels do not possess this pri- 
mary and controlling feature of it, whatever that feature may be, 
hut it is declared to he the characteristic of our race as created. 

Angels are called the sons of God, and Adam is named a son 
of God, (Luke iii. 38) ; but yet, nowhere in the divine word is it 
left to be inferred from this fact that man was created in the 
image of God. In connection with certain precepts, it is expressly 
and repeatedly stated that he was so created, and is nowhere left 
to be inferred. It is, for example, announced to be a fearful 
crime to slay or to curse him, because God created him in His 
own image, according to His likeness. And if creation may con- 
stitute sonship, as in the case of the angels and of Adam, it does 
not therefore necessarily constitute us His offspring (in the sense 
Delitzsch would have it), — i. e., in the sense of imparting to us 
this image and likeness. Paul's affirmation in Acts xvii. 29, that 
we are " the offspring of God " — yivo<$ too 0sod, — cannot mean that 
we are merely His creatures, for all things are such. And in 
illustration of his argument, it may be remarked that, in Daniel 
v. 4-23, the prophet does not mean that Belshazzar and the Chal- 
deans worshipped gods represented by material forms of gold, 
.silver, brass, etc., but gods consisting of such materials, — gods of 



delitzsch's theory. 



507 



.gold, silver, etc. So Paul's reasoning here evinces that such was 
the fact with the Athenians, otherwise his argument that like he- 
gets like would have no relevancy. " Forasmuch then as we are 
the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is 
like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device," 
(vs. 29.) Now yivos is pivgenies, and thence familia, gens, natio. 
'The first is the sense here employed by Paul. (See also Acts iv. 
•6, 26; and vii. 13, 19; and xiii. 26; and xviii. 2 ; and Kev. xxii. 
16.) And this term, though thus directly applied to men even 
.after the fall, is never applied to angels. Though, if Delitzsch's 
inference be just, that, being sons of God, they must be in the like- 
ness of God, we should expect to find it as commonly applied to 
them as to men. 

I conclude this part of the discussion with a reference to the 
inference of Delitzsch from his f orecited argument, that u If man 
l>e created after the image of God and of the angels, it folloius that 
the image of God in man refers primarily to His invisible nature" 
We admit that the image is to be referred mainly to His invisible 
nature ; for God, in whose image he was created, is a spirit (John 
iv. 24) — an expression which, though found but once in the scrip- 
tures (for that in 2 Cor. iii. 17, is not to be confounded with it), 
is amply sufficient to establish the truth announced. The term 
God, here, is not to be understood hypostatically for either the 
Father, or Son, or Holy Spirit exclusively, but for the Godhead — 
the Divine nature or Esse, possessed alike by each. This nature 
is spirit; and though angels are spirits, and thus far may, so to 
speak, resemble either personality or hypostasis of the Godhead, 
it cannot be thence inferred that they possess the likeness of the 
Elohim or Godhead, who created man in His own Triune image 
after His likeness. The fact that they are spirits, therefore, proves 
nothing to the purpose, simply because they were created as 
separate or distinct personalities, while man (o^an) was created 
with such a unity and distinction that when Adam sinned all 
tinned, and not putatively, but really. He was created as man, 
.and yet as men, with a co-existing oneness and plurality wholly 
unlike the angels, and yet in the image and likeness of God. 

Dr. Thornwell, who, previous to the appearance of my former 
•essay, had entertained the same view with Dr. Hodge on this sub- 
ject, has in his lectures (which we had not seen till the spring of 



508 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

1878) abandoned it utterly, and adopts the view presented in that 
essay, and in the following emphatic terms affirms the generic 
unity of man. 1 He says : " On these grounds I am free to con- 
fess that I cannot escape from the doctrine, however mysterious,, 
of a generic unity in man as the true basis of the representative 
economy in the covenant of works. The human race is not an 
aggregate of separate and independent atoms, but constitutes an 
organic whole, with a common life springing from a common 
ground. There is an unity in the whole species ; there is a point 
in which all the individuals meet, and through which they are all 
modified and conditioned." " There is in man what we may call 
a common nature. That common nature is not a mere generali- 
zation of logic, but a substantive reality. It is the ground of all 
individual existence and conditions — the type of its development. 
The parental relation expresses, but does not constitute it ; propa- 
gates, but does not create it. In birth there is the manifestation 
of the individual from a nature-basis which existed before. Birth,, 
consequently, does not absolutely begin, but only individualizes 
humanity. As, then, descent from Adam is the exponent of a 
potential existence in him, as it is the revelation of a fact in rela- 
tion to the nature which is individualized in a given case, it con- 
stitutes lawful and just ground for federal representation. God 
can deal with the natural as a covenant head, because the natural 
proceeds upon an union which justifies the moral." 

" But it may be asked, Do you mean to say that each individual 
will actually expressed itself in the prevarication of Adam — that 
each man actually ate of the forbidden fruit? As individuals, 
certainly not; as individuals, none of us then existed. In our 
separate and distinct capacity, his sin was no more' ours than our 
sins are l^is. But as the race, which was then realized in him, as 
it is now realized in all its individuals, his act was ours. How the 
individual is related to the genus, how the genus contains it, and 
how the individual is evolved from it, are questions which I am 
utterly unable to solve; hut their inystery is no jirejudice to their 
truth. Our moral convictions demand that we should predicate 
such an unity of mankind ; and though a great mystery itself, it 

1 See Lecture XIII. on Theology, Works, Vol. I., pp. 349-351. And also 
the numbers of the Danville Review for September and December, 1861, and 
for March, 1862. 



DR. THORNWELl's VIEW. 



509 



seems to clear up other mysteries which are pitch darkness with- 
out it." 

"If this account of the representative principle should be re- 
jected, we can only fall back upon the testimony of Scripture, and 
treat it as an ultimate fact in the moral government of God, until 
a satisfactory explanation can be given. We must accept it as 
we accept other first principles, and patiently wait until the dif- 
ficulties connected with it are dissipated by further light. It does 
explain hereditary sin and hereditary guilt; it does unlock the 
mystery of God's dealings with the race ; it does meet all the re- 
quirements of conscience in reference to our own moral state and 
condition. All that it leaves unsolved is the question of its own 
righteousness. Every other theory is obliged to deny native de- 
pravity, and to contradict at once the explicit teachings of Scrip- 
ture and the articulate enunciations of conscience." 

III. The trite construction of the phrase " image and like- 
ness." 

But we proceed to consider the language itself of Gen. i. 26, 
27 in reference to this image. And the following very judicious 
remarks of the profound orientalist, Dr. Kennicott, may serve to 
introduce the point. 

He says : " God being about to create man, is introduced as say- 
ing, Let vs make man in oar image after our likeness, in conse- 
quence of which the historian tells us, so God created man in His 
own image, in the image of God created He him. It is evident, 
then, that God created man in His own image ; this is mentioned 
thrice by way of emphasis, and to prevent, if possible, all pos- 
sibility of misconstruction. Now, what God did was certainly 
what He proposed to do : God creating man in His own image ; 
that is, in the image of the Godhead, and therefore God projjosed to 
create him in the image of the Godhead. But ii God proposed to 
create him in the image of the Godhead, the proposal must have 
been made to the Godhead, because the words are, Let us make 
mail in our image. And if the proposal is here made by God to 
the Godhead, it is absurd to suppose it made to the same person 
that makes it, and consequently reasonable to think it made to the 
other two persons in unity with the Godhead." (Two Disserta- 
tions, etc., pp. 29, 30.) 

In the phrase >Jnn"iz> OO 1 ?^! in our image according to our like- 



510 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS DEPUTATION. APPENDIX. 



ness, interpreters find great reason to differ on the question 
whether dSv and rwoi {image and likeness) should be distinguished 
as differing in their import, or whether they together constitute a 
hendiadis or a pluralis intensivus. The question is not unim- 
portant, and we shall present a brief view of what has been ad- 
vanced in the endeavor to render a solution. 

Bernard strongly asserts the distinction. I cite him, not as an 
exegete, but as presenting the view entertained, not only anterior 
to his day (as e. g., by Basil, Homil., 10; Hexam. Jerome, in 
Ezek. xxviii. 12 ; Chrysostom, Homil., 9, in Gen., and Augustine,, 
Damascenus, and others), but as current in his own time. He 
says : " Imago siquidem in Gehenna uri poterit, non exuri, ardere,. 
sed non delere. Similitudo non sit, sed aut manet in bono, aut si 
peccaverit anima mutatur miserabiliter in mentis insipientibus 
similata." (Serm. 1, De Anima.) 

Zanchius very strongly supports the same view. He says: 
"Although many great 'men, ancient and modern, maintain that 
there is no difference here between image and likeness ; I cannot 
but think otherwise, and that the word image is to be referred to 
the substance of the soul of man, but likeness to the qualities and 
gifts and various virtues w T hereby man was made to possess a re- 
semblance to God." (De Great. Horn., lib. I, cap. 1, Tom. III., 
p. 486.) He cites Augustine and P. Martyr, in support of this 
view, which he maintains very forcibly, giving a very plausible 
construction to the passages in the Old and New Testaments which 
have been brought against it. 

Calvin rejects this view, though he admits that interpreters 
generally accept it, and distinguish image from likeness ; and that 
for the most part they hold that image is in the substance, and 
likeness in the accidents. Under the former is to be regarded the 
nature which God bestowed upon man ; and under the latter H is 
gratuitous gifts. {In locum.) 

Yatablus takes the same view, and says: " Yocibus imaginis et 
similitudinis sive simulacri ejusdem significationis. Maximam 
similitudinem significat, q. d., nobis simillimos, ut quantum fieri 
poterit accedant ad naturam nostram." {In locum.) 

Lapide, however, maintains that image and likeness is a hendia- 
dis ; and he adds : " As if it were said, To the image and like- 
ness, that is, to the image of the likeness, as in Wisdom ii. 24, — 



CONSTRUCTION Of THE PHRASE. 



511 



that is, like to, or very like to the image," (in loc), — which he at- 
tempts to sustain by a reference to Genesis v. 1, and ix. 6 ; and adds : 
" The Hebrew for image is d^y, which signifies the shadow or 
adumbration of a thing. For the root ihs signifies to cast a shadow, 
from which bit signifies shadow, and D/S shadowy image." — (Ibid.} 

Grotius, too, makes it a hendiadis. (In loc.) But the expres- 
sion is not image and likeness, which might, indeed, justify such 
a criticism, but our image according to our likeness, which is un- 
favorable to a hendiadis. 

Piscator and Stuart adopt the pluralis intensivus. But we 
need pursue this no farther, and shall offer only a brief remark or 
two on the point. 

As to a plural intensive in such a connection, it certainly, to 
say the least, must, in all candor, be conceded to be a somewhat 
incongruous conception to suppose that God, when speaking to 
Himself, should intensify his expressions by repetition. The 
argument from Genesis v. 1 is of no force ; for though it is true 
that likeness only is therein specified, it is obvious that this is by 
synecdoche; for that image is understood is clear from verse 3 r 
where both terms are employed, and this, too, in a formal historic 
statement, in which a merely rhetorical plural can hardly be re- 
garded as in place, though a hendiadis might be. So, too, in 
chapters i. 27, and ix. 6, image alone is repeated; and in T arnes 
iii. 9, where dfioiann is employed in a similar manner, and includes 
also the whole race. 

It ought, perhaps, to be noted in the connection that in Genesis 
v. 1, a, and not 2 (as in Genesis i. 26), is used before iron, or 
likeness, while in verse 3 the two prepositions are interchanged,, 
and the position of the words themselves reversed: "And Adam 
legal a son in his own likeness, accorded to his image." But 
in Genesis i. 26, Jerome translates 2 by ad, — ad imaginem 
nostram, — though the Hebrew literally is u in our image," the 
radical meaning of 2 being in, and not to. The LXX. render it 
y.ar s : ./M>a r^x—zpa;, — according to out image ; all of which would 
seem to intimate that they must have read Cavh for Beth, unless 
we should accede to what seems to be an unsustained or arbitrary 
criticism of Gesenius, who, in Thesaurus, p. 173, col. 2, under 
the thii'teenth meaning of 2, renders the clause in Genesis i. 26 > 
ad imaginem nostram, secundum similitudinem nostrum. Onkelus, 



512 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

as we have shown, has it "in. our image; 1 ' and so likewise the 
Targum of Jonathan ; and Rabbi Solomon, author of the Targum 
of Jerusalem, who renders the phrase in our type, making oSv 
type; while Moses Gerundensis renders it in our form. 

But even admitting, as Knobel, Delitzsch and others claim, that 
image and likeness, as well as the particles 3 and 3, may be inter- 
changeably employed, yet still the double designation (image and 
likeness), as Lauge has with great force remarked, does not serve 
merely to give a stronger emphasis to the thought, since in that 
case the stronger expression, dSv, should come last, it being the 
shadow, outline, or copy, and therefore the image, while r»?nn is 
the resemblance or comparison. And while 3 expresses the near 
presence of an object, as in, or within, close to, or in it, whether 
in a friendly or hostile sense, near by, etc., 3 expresses the relation 
of similarity or likeness, i. e., as, in some degree, like as, instead 
of, etc. So that in our image means after the principle or norm 
of our image ; but as our likeness means, so that it be our likeness. 
(Page 173.) This judicious criticism places the whole enquiry on 
its true ground. And we further invite the especial attention of 
our readers to the note appended by Tayler Lewis, who, after re- 
marking that the manner in which the two words are used would 
warrant the interpretation that in man as created after this higher 
idea, the oSi' (image) is the pp (species), adds: u This is most 
important in respect to the question, In vjhat consists the. unity of 
the human race f Oneness of physical origin and physical life 
(pp) undoubtedly belongs to the idea of species, but hi a much 
higher sense is this unity conserved by the oSv, the higher species, 
the one spiritual humanity in all men," — a thought which, though 
thus suggested by these terms in their application to the first 
Adam, receives a most impressive elucidation not less than con- 
firmation from the relation sustained by the second Adam to all 
His spiritual offspring. It would be impossible to follow out the 
thought fully in the brief compass of this note. But it will not 
be needed by the intelligent believer, who has duly considered 
that Christ, who is the image of the invisible God (Col. i.), the 
express image of His person (Heb. i.), is our Head, the beginning 
of the new creation (Rev. iii. 14), who is the Life of all His cove- 
nanted seed, who are included in Him as " members of His body, 
of His flesh, and of His bones," and who in Him become partakers 



WHAT 15 THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS \ 



513 



of the Divine nature, are created anew in Him, and the life which 
they live they live by Him. They are, therefore, spiritually one 
with Him. And yet in that oneness there is no confounding 
together, or merging of their distinct spiritual personality with 
either that of each other or with that of their Head : for He is 
the vine and they are the branches, who can possess nolife unless 
by abiding in the vine. The attempt to subject this transcen- 
dently precious and glorious truth to a cold intellectual analysis, 
when the moral nature is that with which it is pre-eminently con- 
cerned, would be folly. It has ever been realized in its truth and 
power in the rich experience of the children of God ; and to them 
it ever has proved, and to such through all the coming centuries 
it ever will prove, the source of their brightest hopes and their 
purest joys. 

IV. What is the image and likeness 

We now come to the main point of this whole discussion : "What 
is the image and likeness referred to in Gen. i. 26, 27, and else- 
ichere in the Scriptures ? And taking the whole subject into con- 
sideration, we may remark that the fact is certainly a most impres- 
sive one, that on the question, }That are the points of resemblance 
which Jfoses, or rather God [whose language Moses rejjeats), in- 
tended here to indicate as constituting this image and likeness? ex- 
positors have never been able even to approximate an agreement, 
being wholly unable to tlx upon any basis for predication. The 
reader will bear with me while I endeavor briefly to place the facts 
before him, which, on several accounts, will be preferable to a 
mere statement of the result of the investigation. Many of our 
previous citations will likewise bear equally upon this point, but they 
need not be here reproduced, as the reader can easily refer to them. 

The fact of this remarkable disagreement is fully acknowledged 
by Gregory of JTyssa, in his De Opificio Hominis, a tractate de- 
voted to a consideration of the subject. Theodoret (Quaest. XX. in 
Genesin) confesses himself unable to determine in what the image 
consisted, while Epiphanius (Haeres. 30) comes to the conclusion 
that the matter cannot be determined. Such are the results to 
which a consideration of the discussions of the subject in their own 
day and anterior thereto had led these learned and eminent men., 
and the disagreement since has been equally as great, and is not 
less at the present time. 

33 



514 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

As to the Jewish interpreters, Philo placed the image in the 
voD?, or rational soul, in which he has been followed by some emi- 
nent Jews and Christians. But the Jews include in the meaning 
of the image, (1), The immortality of the body (see Wisdom ii. 23,. 
24) ; (2), Dominion over the earth (Wisdom ix. 2, 3 ; Sirach xvii. 
3, 4). Thus, too, the Targum of Onkelos, 'And the Lord said, 
Let us make man (n^3x) in our image as our likeness ; and they 
shall have dominion" etc. ; (3), The moral state (Wisdom ix. 3). 

Tertullian, (Adversus Marcian II., 5, 6) placed it in the innate 
powers and faculties of the human soul, especially in the freedom 
of choice between good and evil. 

Origen {Tlepi apyjbv, III., 6), Gregory of Nyssa and Leo the Great 
approximate this view of Tertullian in the general, and regard the 
image of God as principally consisting in the rectitude and free- 
dom of the will, and in the due subordination of the inferior powers 
of the soul to the superior. To which Leo, however, and many 
others add the immortality of the body. 

Nazianzen places it in the mental and moral capacities of the 
soul. Ambrose in its possession of liberty, liber um arbitrium, 
Basil and Chrysostom in its power and dominion over all animals. 
Augustine chiefly in the incorporeality and indivisibility of the 
soul; and he adopts Aristotle's division of its mental powers (me- 
mory, will, and understanding) as presenting a likeness to the 
Trinity, in which man was created. The representations of these 
eminent men, however, are not always self-consistent ; but on this 
we need not dwell. 

Epiphanius blames Origen for teaching that Adam through the 
fall lost the image of ~God, which, says he, the Bible nowhere af- 
firms. He knows and believes " quod in cunctis hominibus imago 
Dei pennaneaty (Epist. ad Joan, in Opp. Hieronymi, Tom. I.) 
Augustine also at first took the ground that the image of God was 
destroyed in the fall. (De Genes., lib. VI., cap. 27.) But in his 
Retractions (lib. II., cap. 24) he recalls this, and opposes Origen • 
but says, that while the view is to be rejected that in Adam, after 
he sinned, nothing remained of the image of God ; yet it is true 
that that image had become so deformed through sin that it needed 
a renewal. 

Damascenus, after Augustine, adopts Aristotle's enumeration 
of the mental powers, and placed the divine image in the endow- 



WHAT IS THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS. 



515 



ment of intellect, will, and memory, and sought therein to recog- 
nize the likeness of the Trinity. 

Many of the Greek fathers regard the ~t> voepdv xai aorsz<»'>v>.o>, the 
self-conscious and free nature of man, or his individual personality, 
as the image of God, in which sense, it of course could not be for- 
feited by the fall. And this conception, inadequate as it is (for 
no individual personality can be an image of the tripersonality of 
God), has been adopted by many later writers ; but, as Delitzsch 
(pp. 85-87) has 1 well remarked in relation to this view, that "per- 
sonality is only the unity of consciousness, which comprehends the 
entire condition of being in likeness of God, and which is appro- 
priate to it. But this entire condition is a created representation 
of the entire absolute life of the Triune God, and not merely of 

the Logos." " Everywhere Scripture says only that man 

was created after the image of the Elohim, or of the Godhead." 
. . . . " It is the entire living fulness of the Triune Godhead which 
is reflected' in man, and this reflection is at once physical and 
moral, and by sin it is not only morally, but also physically cor- 
rupted." And that the true nature of God is represented in man 
Augustine emphatically affirms. (De Civ. Dei, lib. II., and De 
Trinit., lib. X.) And the conception has ever been a common one 
in the Church, but the attempt to find the resemblance in the 
mental powers, or moral qualities alone, etc., has invariably been 
fruitful of confusion and error. 

Most of the Greek and Latin fathers distinguish between image 
ojid similitude, meaning by the image the original constitution, the 
innate powers and faculties of the soul ; but by the similitude, 
they understand the actual resemblance to God which is acquired 
by the exercise of these powers. 

The Schoolmen are, if possible, still more at variance than the 
earlier writers; and our modern critics and theologians agree no 
better than the ancients. In regard to the Schoolmen, some of 
them, after Philo, place the image in the rational soul ; others, in 
man's dominion over the inferior creatures, — which view was 
adopted also by Socinus and his followers, as well as by many Ar- 
minians. 

Lombard (Sentent., lib. IL, Dist. 16, litt. D.) and Aquinas (Sum. 
Part L, Qusest. 93, Art. 1) affirm, however, that image should be 
referred to nature, and likeness to gifts — which view also Bellarmin 



516 



ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. 



, APPENDIX. 



sustains (De Grat. Primi Hominis, cap. 2). It is, however, strong- 
ly rejected by Lapide (in locum), and many others of the leading 
Papal divines. 

The Lutheran divines, from Col. iii. 10, and Eph. iv. 24, affirm 
that the likeness of God is utterly lost through sin. Gerhard, in 
his Locis, and Calovius, in the Synopsis controv., deny that the 
image of God subsists in Us qvce ad essentiam animoe pertinent et 
quce etiam post lapsum naturaliter ei insunt; and though there 
are great differences amongst them on the question as to what con- 
stitutes the image itself, they seem fully to concur with Gerhard 
in his emphatic affirmation, that man was created an image of the 
Trinity. (Loci Theol. Tom. IV., loc. IX., § 6.) 
. The Calvinistic divines differ in regard to both. 

The views of Zwingle are given in his German works (Yol. L, 
p. 56), in which he denies that the likeness to God can be in our 
bodies, as thence it must follow that God is a compound, and -that 
hence it does follow that we are fashioned after the image of God 
in our minds or souls. And referring to Augustine, who, as above 
stated, adopted Aristotle's division of the mental powers as an 
image of the Trinity, Zwingle says: "We find in ourselves that 
the image of God is much more cognate with some things than 
with those three powers " that is, there are other parts 
of x us in which the image of God may be discerned." (See Dr. 
Henry B. Smith's edition of Hagenbach, Yol. IT., p. 253.) 

Hyperius, in 1 Cor. xi. 7, places the image in man's superior 
excellence to other creatures: "Appellat (Paulus) autem virum 
imaginem et gloriam Dei propter excellentiam, quae prseditus est 
vir, ob id, quod primus et summa potestate, quae proximus est Deo, 
sit conditus, Deo in omnibus quam maxime similis, magis quam 
ulla alia creatura, nullum habens prseter Deum superiorem ; ideo- 
quam homo dicitur in scripturis ad imaginem Dei creatus." See 
also on Col. iii. 10 (p. 141), where he rejects the opinion of Au- 
gustine and Damascenus, who find the likeness in Aristotle's clas- 
sification of the memory, intellect and will, and affirms that it con- 
sists in righteousness, holiness and truth. 

Calvin holds that the image is blotted out by sin — "imago ilia 
deleta est per peccatum," and that Christ therefore restores it. 
(See on Gen. i. 26, Eph. iv. 24, and Col. iii. 10). In his Insti- 
tutes, however, he would harmonize the corporeal and spiritual, by 



WHAT IS THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS 5 



517 



representing the former as the foil to the latter. (Lib. I., cap. 15, 
§§ 3 and 4). He, too, agrees with Zwingle in rejecting Angus- 
tine's view of the three powers, understanding, will and memory, 
as an image of the Trinity. (§ 8.) 

Polanus, after remarking that the soul and body as a compound 
cannot be the image of God, as God consists not of matter and 
spirit, but the soul alone and the gifts pertaining to it, though it 
shines in the body, and in the whole person of man, and adds : 
"Quocirca subjectura et sedes imaginis Dei est proprie anima 
hominis ; etiamsi effecta ac documenta imaginis Dei etiam in cor- 
pore hominis, veluti in animse instrument ac per consequens in 
toto homine se proferant ac refulgeant." (Syntag., p. 1049.) 

Parens, in Jas. iii. ; 9, says : " Hominibus ad Dei imaginem factis. 
Hoc docet maledictionem quae sit hominibus, redundare in Deum 
non minus quam contumatia imaginus, Eegis facta in regem redun- 
dat." And in reply to the remark that the image is now abolished 
by sin, which, says he, the Socinians deny £for they place it simply 
in dominion] , he remarks that it is indeed Hotted out in great 
measure (deletam esse magno in parte), so far as righteousness, ho- 
liness, and rectitude are concerned, and which are restored by 
Christ ; but that there are clea • remains of it in the minds and 
hearts of men. And on Gen. ix. 6, he remarks : " The fifth reason 
for the prohibition of murder is derived from the dignity of man. 
The image of God cannot be destroyed with impunity, because if 
the image of God be violated, God is wronged. But man was made 
in the image of God; therefore he cannot with impunity be slain. 
They, therefore, who are not deterred from murder on account of 
natural bands, or the fear of punishment, should be deterred by 
reverence, lest they violate the image of God." And he adds, that 
certain lineaments of the original image still remain in mankind. 

Piscator, on Gen. i. 26, says: "Posita autem est (imago ilia 
Dei), vel potius fuit (nam per lapsum bona ex parte amissa est), 
partim in hominis substantia, atque imprimis in anima, et in parti- 
bus ejus essentialibus, potentiis ac virions: partim in certis quali- 
tatibus, certaque dignitate, honore et gloria quibus ornatus fuit 

homo Atque adeo sicut person se in Deo tres sunt ; ita in 

hominis anima tres sunt potential, videlicet, intellectiva, sensitiva, 
et vegitativa." (P. 15, col. 1.) Then in Gen. ix. 6, he says: " Qtio- 
niarn ad imaginem Dei, etc. Quum per homicidium violetur im- 



51 8 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 



ago Dei ad quam homo est canditus : duo hinc colliguntur : unum, 
quod reliquiae imaginis Dei in homine ad hoc supersint : alterum 
quod imago Dei ad corpus quoque hominis pertineat, tanquam an- 
imge scilicet nativum instrumentum arctissima necessitudine cum 
ilia devinctum." In Eph. iv., 24, and Col. iii. 10, he makes the 
image to relate to knowledge and the will. 

Turrettin affirms that men since the fall possess the divine image. 
(Yol. I. p. 414.) 

Lapide maintains the present existence of this image in man, 
and cites Chrysostom in his support: "Ad imaginem, etc., q. d., 
Si non movet te natura communis, moveat saltern imago mea: 
homo enim est imago mea vide erga ne cum occidendo, ccelestis 
regis vivam imaginem demoliaris;" and adds: "So that thou dost 
an injury not so much to man as to God." (In Gen. ix. 6.) He 
likewise refers to Jerome, Chrysostom, Basil, Eucherus, Augustine, 
Damascenus, and Bernard, as holding that image pertains to na- 
ture and similitude to the virtues, and remarks, that on this ground 
the similitude, and not the image of God, perished in man through 
sin." But he places it in the understanding of man, and concurs 
with Augustine (De Trinit., lib. X., cap. 10, and lib. XIV., cap. 11), 
in the attempt to trace therein the likeness to the Godhead or 
Trinity. 

We cite, in conclusion, a few of the later expositors. 
Whitby, on James iii. 9, says: "After the similitude of God. 
From this 9th verse it appears that man lost not the image of God 
in the fall." He holds that it consists, primarily, in dominion. 

Beiigel, on Col. iii. 10, says that " the image (in the new man) 
results from regeneration," which of course, infers that it was 
purely moral. And on Jas. iii. 9, says: "Amissimus Dei similitu- 
dinem." 

Bloomfield, on Eph. iv. 24, renders v.o-d. Bern " in conformity to 
the will of God." But if (as, after many others, he suggests, that) 
"holding in delegation from God the government of all creatures," 
(Gen. i. 26-27, Ps. vii. 4-6, Wisdom ix. 2), constitutes man 
the ehwv zoo dsou, as a viceroy is called, sixwv too fiaadiuis, being the 
king's type or representative (see on 1 Cor. xi. 7), then Nero, who 
in this precise sense was called " the minister of God," and Neb- 
uchadnezzar, who was God's "servant" in the same sense, possessed 
his image truly, as originally created ; while those they ruled and 



SOMAEY AND RESULTS 



519 



oppressed had it not, which is. of course, inadmissible. But it 
should be stated that 86~a here (1 Cor. xi. 7 ) about which there has 
been much dispute, appears to be used, as by the LXX. in Num- 
bers xii. 8, du~a zuptou, the similitude of the Lord, and likewise in 
Ps. xvii. 15, du^a ffou, thy likeness. And this meaning, moreover, 
would apply to both instances of its use in this verse, to wit : man 
the similitude of God, and woman the similitude of man. And so, 
along with the accompanying word, eUco>, the sense would be, that 
man is the image and similitude of God. 

Wordsworth here explains slzwv, not corporeally, but intellec- 
tually, and especially by reason of " dominion over the creatures ;" 
and on Col. iii. 10, explains it as " God's intellectual, rational, 
moral, and spiritual likeness.'' And then, on James iii. 9, says : 
" From this sentence it is clear that though the image of God in 
man was marred by the fall, it was not destroyed. See also Gen. 
ix. 6, where murder is forbidden after the flood, on the ground 
that man was made in the image of God, and the divine image 
defaced in Adam has been restored in Christ." (Col. iii. 10 ; Eph. 
iv. 

Lange, on Gen. ix. 6, asserts the present existence of God's 
image in man: "For in the image of God, etc. This is the rea- 
son for the command against murder. In man there is assailed 
the image of God, the personality, that which constitutes the very 
aim of his existence, although the image itself is inviolable.*' 

Hemaeks on the Foeegoexg. 
Such, then, is the condition in which this inquiry and its re- 
sults are found existing in theology and biblical literature. And 
from the latter portion of these quotations it is evident that the 
great and marked advance in exegetical knowledge, with its ap- 
proved appliances for unfolding the meaning of the sacred text, 
has brought the question as to what constitutes the Divine image 
and likeness no nearer a satisfactory solution than it was fifteen 
centuries ago : but it should be borne in mind, however, that 
there is a universal concurrence on various points of the inquiry, 
on which we shall remark presently, and amongst them the follow- 
ing, which claims special attention, to-wit: that man vjas created 
after the image, according to the likeness of the Triune God, and 
not after that of either personal hypostasis. Occasionally, it is 



520 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 



true, we meet with some one who seems to know all about the 
constituency of the image and likeness, and who can, without the 
slightest hesitation or difficulty, inform us which of these cited 
opinions is correct, as the young man (Yincentius Victor) did in 
regard to the question of creationism and traducianism ; who, dis- 
approving of Augustine's hesitation to come to a decision thereon, 
very decidedly embraced creationism ; but whom Augustine 
strongly rebuked for his youthful indiscretion, in pretending thus 
to settle that question without even a due appreciation of its 
actual state. But we refer, not to such instances, but to the pre- 
vailing views of the Church. 

It certainly cannot be doubted, in view of the frequent re w 
ferences to the subject by inspired teachers in both the Old and 
New Testaments, that the subject is one of real and intrinsic im- 
portance, or that the divine word must contain within itself the 
sources or elements for a full solution of the question ; and if so,, 
that hitherto we have failed in the effort rightly to apprehend 
those teachings. The fault of theologians and interpreters in the 
matter, however, is not, as Knapp asserts (Theology, p. 168), that 
they have overlooked the different meanings in which the phrase 
image and likeness of God is employed in the Bible, but it ob- 
viously is, that they have assumed that there might be radically 
different meanings attached to the words, even in that connection in 
which God Himself directly employs them in Gen. i. 26, 27. And 
hence they have, in failing to recognize the fact so justly affirmed 
by Delitzsch, that "Scripture knows but one likeness to God in 
man, which is at once moral and physical, and which cannot be 
lost morally without being at the same time physically ruined " 
failed also to agree on any sense in which it is employed in all the 
other passages. 

After the doctrinal discussion with the Socinians and Kemon- 
strants had been fully inaugurated, they who held that the 
image of God in man was ethical only, and in no sense natural, 
found it expedient, in order to retain their view, to affirm that the 
whole image of God was obliterated by the fall. And hence, as 
this could not very well be made to comport with such declara- 
tions as are contained in Gen. ix. 6; 1 Cor. xi. 7, and James iii. 
9, it was deemed important to concede a two-fold usage (that is, 
a wider and narrower sense) of the term itself. The very learned 



SUMMARY AND RESULT. 



521 



Vcetius has gone laboriously into this topic, 1 without, however, re- 
lieving his own position, which had been strongly excepted 
against, that " the image was wholly obliterated by the fall." 
Delitzsch forcibly remarks (p. 85), that " It is this distinction of a 
divine likeness in a broader (physical) meaning which cannot be 
lost, and a divine likeness in a narrower (ethical) meaning which 
has been lost by the fall, which is subject to the charge of an un- 
modified dualism that has been felt even by our dogmatists them- 
selves." But in order that this phase of the subject may fully 
appear in the connection, we shall here cite a brief passage in 
illustration, only premising that the necessity felt and recognized 
in the circumstances for such a two-fold definition, should cer- 
tainly have wrought the conviction, either that the difference be- 
tween the D^y and the nmi had not been properly appreciated, or, 
admitting the plural intensive, that the conception of the dSit had 
been wholly at fault. 

" The word divine image" says Vcetius (ubi supra), "is by our 
theologians taken sometimes in a broad, and sometimes in a strict,. 
sense. In the former it denotes all those things which not only 
formally (as I may say) constitute the image of God, but even 
those which fundamentally and presuppositiously pertain to it, and 
which may be found enumerated by Ursinus (on Catech. Quest. 
7), Polanus (Syntagma, lib. V., cap. 34), and ordinarily by our 
writers on the Common Places. But accepted in the latter sense 
it embraces and signifies rectitude, righteousness, holiness, and per- 
fect conformity with the law of God. So the apostle describes it 
(Eph. iv. 24), and our Catechism (Quest. 6) ; and the commentaries 
for the most part on Eph.iv. 24; Col.iii. 10, take notice that the image 
of God is by synecdoche called wisdom and righteousness. (See Go- 
mar on Col. iii) . Piscator and Bollock, on Eph. iv. 24, even without 
a synecdoche place the image of God in wisdom and righteousness. 
They very properly call the image of God, so understood, the 
same as habits and gifts (habitus et dona) (see Wendelinus, Bucan,, 
Polanus, in Locis Com.), and say that it is the same as original 
righteousness." He then goes on to specify also the various views- 
of our theologians; and as the references may be of service to 
those who may further desire to investigate the subject, we cite 
the chief of them : Tilenus, Syntag., Part I., Disput. 32 ; Danceus r 

1 Selects? Disputationes, Tom. V., pp. 595 seq. 

6 



522 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

Part III., Isagog., cap. 6 ; Beza and Fay us, Disput., 20, § 7 ; Ley- 
dey Synopsis, Disput., 13, § 42; Festus Hom?nius, on the Cate- 
chism, Quest. 6 ; Forbes, Lib. V., Instruct. 13 ; Calvin, Instit., lib. 
X, cap. 15, § 4. 

• 

Summary and Result. 

That the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity was unknown to the 
ancient people of God, and is unrevealed in the Old Testament 
scriptures, is a statement not only with nothing to sustain it, but 
one which is at variance with all the facts in the case. 

God designed, by the creation of man, to produce, for the man- 
f estation of His own glory, the image or likeness of Himself. That 
He could create such an image or likeness no one will doubt, and 
that He did create it His word fully affirms. This image, more- 
over, was according to the likeness of the Godhead, and not after 
either individual hypostasis of the Godhead. The subject, though 
inexpressibly awful, and not to be approached by a spirit of mere 
speculative inquiry, may yet be properly contemplated in those 
aspects of it in which it is in the Bible presented to our attention 
and consideration as of the highest practical interest in its relation to 
other great truths of revelation, and only in this aspect do we 
venture to advert to it at all. 

It is, therefore, an obvious truth, that in regard to the Divine 
nature individuality of hypostasis is not, in itself, identical with 
Godhead, any more than one and, three as such are identical ; and 
consequently, that one distinct individuality cannot, in its purely 
personal capacity, constitute an image or likeness of three indi- 
vidualities, either as an unity or as co-existing personalities, will 
hardly be questioned ; and that therefore no one of the divine hy- 
postases, in itself and as such, either is, or can be truly a likeness 
of the Trinity as such, is equally obvious; and consequently, that 
to be created in the likeness simply of either, could not be equiva- 
lent to being created in the likeness of the Triune Godhead ; and 
bence, when Christ is named the zhwv of the invisible God (Col.i. 15), 
and the express image of His person, yapazryp -7^ uTTOfrrdasw? (Heb. 
i. 3), it is, in both instances, the Father, and not the Tri-Unity or 
Godhead, that is specifically referred to. 

The same reasons evince that the possession of immortality or 
dominion, or of any ethical qualities or properties of a merely per- 



* 



SUMMARY AND RESULT. 



523 



sonal or individual existence, cannot constitute him, simply as 
such, an image of the Triune God, and that the most that such 
properties could effect in that direction would be to constitute a 
resemblance or likeness between him and one of the divine hypos- 
tases, contemplated not in its unity with the others, but in its dis- 
tinct individuality. 

Now, the Adam (oixn), the species, or race, -was really created 
in the likeness of the Godhead, and not in that of either hypostasis 
as such ; that is, it was created with a co-existing unity and dis- 
tinction of individuality or personality. So that in its unity it was 
the image or likeness of the divine unity, and in its distinction of 
individuality it was an image of the distinction of the divine 
Trinity ; that is, in the image or likeness itself, as in the original or 
Godhead itself there was a co-existing unity and distinction. Nor 
is it necessary to suppose that the existence of this distinction in 
the image or likeness must involve a full and developed personality 
on the part of those of the race not yet brought into manifested 
being, for the fact of its actual existence as a distinction is all that 
the argument requires — a distinction which recognizes the fact of 
the statement that all sinned when Adam sinned. Our unity in 
Adam did not ignore or deprive us of our individual responsibility, 
either as participants in this sin or in the punishment which it in- 
incurred. And whatever degree of actual existence this fact may 
involve we know not ; nor is it necessary we should know in order 
•either to believe the truth thus affirmed, or to employ it as an ex- 
planatory principle. 

Thus was man created in the divine image and likeness, that is, 
with a co-existing unity and distinction in his nature ; and it is 
worthy of note that this conclusion is both reached and based upon 
principles admitted by the Church in every age, though not re- 
cognized in their mutual connection or logical concatenation, be- 
cause no effort was made at combination ; and further, that it is 
really in no way invalidated by those divergent and clashing views 
which in every age have marked the discussion of the subject, as 
uoted above. So that in their contentions and divergency of views 
from each other, they, in general, mutually concede, and even af- 
firm, every principle that is required for establishing the conclu- 
sion we announce in regard to what constitutes the image or like- 
ness of God in man. And we shall show presently that those 



524 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

selfsame disputes and differences have recognized -as true the 
very points which constitute the basis of this whole representa- 
tion. 

It can be no objection that the idea of such co-existing unity 
and plurality js inconceivable, unless we would repudiate the doc- 
trine of the Trinity itself ; for it is confessedly so in the original,, 
and why then may it not be so in the likeness ? But it is not as 
a matter to be intellectually comprehended that its importance 
consists, but as a -principle, or first truth, to he applied ; for in 
both alike, that is, in the original and likeness, it constitutes a first 
truth or explanatory principle (as we have shown), and is to be 
employed as such for elucidating and understanding the scheme 
of mercy and salvation, and of God's dealings with the race of 
man. JNor is it necessary in either case that the understanding or 
the reason should comprehend the principle itself in order to its 
legitimate and intelligent application. 

Let us, then, proceed to consider the points which, while they^ 
stand (as we have said) unaffected by all this variation of views, 
bear directly upon the question we have raised, and which it is the 
object of this note to consider. It is conceded, therefore, to be the 
doctrine of the Word and Church, 

1. That the term "image or likeness of God" as employed in 
Gen. i. 26, 27, denotes a resemblance to God that is real, and not 
merely rhetorical. And though the terms may imply specific ethi- 
cal qualities, and so evince that those qualities were associated with 
the image or likeness originally (Eph. iv. 24 ; Col. iii. 10), it is 
equally plain that the image itself includes far more than these, 
and that they w T ere then simply its adornments ; for 1 Cor. xi. T 
cannot, without manifest violence to grammatical and rhetorical 
propriety, be otherwise explained. And it is clear, moreover,, 
from Gen. vi. 9, and James iii. 9, in which men, since the fall, and 
without reference to their moral state, are represented as still 
possessed of that image ; and it is doing clear violence to the lan- 
guage to say that this is to be regarded as merely retrospective. The 
reason given why the murderer should be put to death is not that 
he had abused a piece of clay which once had the royal image en- 
stamped upon it, though now utterly defaced, but because he had 
defaced the royal image itself as existing therein. And hence, 
too, as the apostle affirms (James iii. 9), the cursing of man is so 



SUMMARY AND RESULT. 



525 



great a crime. It is a cursing of the actually existing image of 
God, and not of a something wherein it had once been. 

This has ever been the recognized sense of these words, except 
in instances where the exigences of some theory have demanded 
that their obvious testimony should be set aside ; and the repre- 
sentation may receive both illustration and confirmation from 
passages like the following : i% If any man defile the temple of 
God (the body), him will God destroy;" and "Know ye not that 
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," etc. (1 Cor. iii. 17, 
and vi. 19.) The former of these passages reads: e? r.v rdv vadv rod 
deoo pOetpetj a>0ip£i murov 6 0s6?. and taken in connection with the 
preceding verse, the sense is: "Ye yourselves know that your 
body is the temple of God ; if any one destroys that temple God 
will destroy him." The application of the fact stated is made by 
the apostle in both passages primarily to the believer, but the fact 
itself is susceptible also of wider application ; for God claims the 
bodies of all as His rightful temple, or the dwelling place for His 
moral perfections ; and the allusion in the former passage (verse 
17), in reference to His destroying those who destroy His temple, 
seems to be directly to Gen. ix. 6. The body, therefore, is still 
the rightful temple of God, though sin and Satan have made it a 
den of thieves. It is still His dwelling place, though, as regards 
the unregenerate, He has been compelled to forsake it. But in 
no sense does He resign His right to it, while man continues in 
the new probationary state which He has through the Mediator 
assigned him. This seems to be the apostolic teaching, and on it 
is predicated the denounced vengeance of God against him who 
destroys that temple : and this, not because it had once been His 
temple and rightful dwelling, but because it still is, and because, 
so far from having abandoned it even in the case of the unre- 
generate, He is seeking, through the gospel, a re-entrance upon 
His possession. So long, therefore, as He thus seeks to regain 

possession He claims it as His own : for He aims at no usurpa- 
tion. And in like manner man still retains the image of God in 

which he was originally created, although its moral adornments 
have been so greatly blurred and obliterated by the fall. 

2. We have seen likewise that it is the unvaried doctriiie of the 

Church, that the image and likeness of God in ichich man icas 

created, is not the image of either person of the Godhead severally 



526 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

considered, but of the Godhead itself in its unity and tri-personal- 
ity. The reader, by recurring to our citations, will perceive how 
clearly and fully this has been stated and affirmed, both in ancient 
and modern times, by the eminent critics and divines of the 
Church. And I here add, as expressing succinctly and clearly 
the church view, the statement of the truly learned and profound 
exegete, Cornelius a Lapide, who says: "Imago haec non est 
verbum divinum, sive Filius, qui est imago Patris, uti aliqui apud 
Lipoman. explicant, sed est ipsa essentia divina, ipseque Deus 
unus et trinus, ad hujus enim imaginem conditus est homo." — 
{In loc.) 

3. Further, that not Adam only as an individ/ual, but the race 
or species, was created therein. For, as we have seen, and as has 
always been fully recognized, ona is the name, not of the first man 
only, or principally (for he is first thus specifically designated 
in Gen. iii. IT), but of the species ; and that, therefore, the race 
was created in the image according to the likeness of the Triune 
God. The fact is divinely stated, and has ever been affirmed uni- 
versally by the Church, and is, therefore, undeniable. How to ex- 
plain the fact itself we know not ; and in our present stage of 
being it seems as impossible to comprehend or understand it as 
existing in humanity, as it is to understand and explain the co-ex- 
isting unity and distinction of personality in the original ; that is, 
in the divine nature itself. 

4. That the race, though fallen, still retain this image, though 
its ethical adornments, or lineaments, as above stated, have been 
defaced by the fall, and therefore that this image did not consist 
merely in ethical properties and perfections, which sin could ob- 
literate ; but existed in humanity itself, as created by God, and 
adorned by Him with those gifts or perfections. 

5. As has been shown, the Church has, from the first, recog- 
nized the fact that the likeness or image in which man was cre- 
ated was that of the Triune God ; and the assertion that he was 
created in the likeness of the Logos, or Son, has always been 
promptly rejected on this ground, that it was the Triune God who 
created him in His own image, after His likeness. And yet,, 
though this is so fully affirmed from the first, and by the ablest 
critics and divines, as the undoubted teaching of the Word, and 
the doctrine of the Church, even they themselves, in applying this 



SUMMARY AND RESULT. 



527 



great truth, have attributed to cixn as created in the likeness of 
God, an image or likeness which is in no sense a likeness of God 
as the Elohim or Triune Jehovah ; but> on the contrary, one that 
is simply hypostatical — that is, one which pertains alike and 
equally to each of the persons of the Godhead as individuals, or 
personalities. As, for example, with Augustine, Damascenus, and 
Hyperius and others, who, while they concede and affirm that the 
likeness, to be true, must be that of the Godhead itself, and while 
they earnestly endeavor to meet tins requirement by showing, by 
a trifokl enumeration of qualities, that man was really so created, 
assign qualities or characteristics which pertain alike to either of 
the Divine hypostases, and not to the Godhead as to its entirety. 
Thus Augustine and Damascenus find the Triune image in "man's 
understanding, will, and memory P Zwingle rejects this, and 
finds it in other personal qualities, better adapted to express that 
likeness. Hyperius, too, rejects it, and finds the true Triune 
image in "righteousness, holiness, and truth:*' And so on through, 
the whole catalogue of expositors. And thus a triune likeness is 
provided. But it is a likeness not of the Trinity of the vjord of 
God, or of the Ch urch, hut of the Trinity of Sabellius. They are 
distinctions which pertain to each single hypostasis as such, and 
therefore as much to one of the hypostases as to another; while 
the image actually demanded in the case is that of the Godhead as 
such — an image or likeness wherein the Three and the One are 
alike represented — that is, the Unity and distinction of personal- 
ity; for without this there would be no image of God as the Tri- 
une Jehovah. The same may be said fas already remarked) of all 
attempts to construe the image as only moral or ethical ; or. as 
consisting in dominion, immortality, dzc. For these are not an 
image of the Godhead in seipso, though, they be of each one of the 
persons individually. But the Scripture statements, and also the 
recognized consciousness of the Church, demand, that the imo.ge 
should he that of the Godhead as such, and not of a single hypos- 
tasis ; or consist of that only which is common alike to each hy- 
postasis, as is the fact with all of these representations. Tor if 
this be denied, then the clearly announced doctrine of the Church 
on the subject from the very heginning must he abandoned — to 
wit: that the Adam, the race, was not created in the image or like- 
ness of either the Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, hut in the likeness 



528 OKIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION.- — APPENDIX. 

of the Godhead itself. Their own decided and universal teaching 
requires this; nor does it amount to any rational objection against 
the truth on which we insist, that they themselves differed, or 
failed in their efforts to make the true application of it. Such, 
then, is precisely the image of which we speak. It is not hypo- 
statical, nor merely ethical, but natural — the Unity and Distinc- 
tion of Personality as existing in the Godhead. The Fall has 
greatly impaired its ethical lineaments, or adornments, but the 
image itself necessarily remains. 

A careful consideration of Col. hi. 10 will show that it in no 
way . really conflicts with this representation ; for the passage does 
not affirm that the divine image, as originally created, is recon- 
structed. The whole argument of the apostle forbids such a con- 
clusion ; but that its ethical adornments are revived — " the new 
man is dyaxa^oofj.e^o'^ being renewed" (note the present), i. e., daily, 
" in knowledge, according to the image of him who created him." 
It is, of course, not God's knowledge which is here referred to, but 
the knowledge of God which was lost through the fall. And that 
the whole conception here is purely ethical, and the renewal itself 
inseparably associated with the human will or agency, is plain from 
the whole passage : " Ye have put off the old man with his deeds, 
and have put on the new man, which is being renewed" etc. Now 
God alone could create the image (Gen. i. 26, 27), and no mere 
creature, in any proper sense of the term, recreate or reproduce it, 
and hence it is of course, the ethical lineaments of the original 
image, or those which have reference to our own moral agency, 
which are here referred to, and which are put on through the grace 
of Him " who worketh in us to will and to do of his good pleasure. 
The collateral passage (Eph. iv. 21, 32), makes all this perfectly 
plain : " That ye put off the old man, and be renewed in the spirit 
of your mind ; and that ye put on the new man, which, after 
God, 1 is created in righteousness and true holiness." And in the 
following verses the apostle shows how this is to be accomplished, 
to wit : by daily and constant efforts to mortify our sinful lusts, 
and to follow Christ. In other words, the fall alienated us from 
God. Regeneration through the mighty power of His Spirit re- 

1 Bloomfield here renders xard deov " in conformity to the will of God," and 
Delitzsch admits that it "might mean in a divine manner." (The old notion 
that the phrase is an ellipsis, seems destitute of all foundation.) 



SUMMARY AND RESULT. 



529 



•stores ns from this alienation; and progressive sanctification, in 
which we are to co-operate with his grace and Spirit {and it is of 
this, and not of the act of regeneration, that he is speaking in loth 
these passages), restores, step by step, these ethical lineaments of 
our original image, which sin has defaced, to wit: righteousness 
and true holiness (as in Eph. iv. 24), which constitute that saving, 
or practical knowledge of God (as it is named in Colossians iii. 9), 
in which we are daily to advance. 

'No creature, it is true, can represent God as the eternal, omni- 
potent, omniscient and omnipresent Jehovah. But if the image of 
God in man in its natural lineaments (as distinguished from the 
merely ethical, that is, if it be a representation of the Trinity), 
consist of the aforesaid unity and distinction in the ona, on the 
ground of which all the race sinned in the first sin, then we pos- 
sessed that image, not only in its ethical adornments, but naturally, 
and in a sense in which it could by no means pertain to angels, 
as they were all simultaneously created in possession of their full 
individual personality. So that the sinning of any one or more of 
them did not involve the sinning of others, while, on the contrary, 
the sinning of the Adam (D"jxn), was really and truly the sinning 
of the race. (Rom. v. 12.) And it it would appear that the 
apostle, in these words, had reference to the expression of the 
same fact, as developed with equal clearness and force by Solomon, 
in Eccles. 7. 29, and who, in referring to the original creation of 
man and to his fall, says (as the words literally rendered convey 
the fact) : " Only see ! this have I found, that God made man up- 
right, and they have sought out many inventions. " He calls at- 
tention to the fact, not to speculate upon it, but simply as a fact of 
transcendent interest to man. God created nn^n, which is un- 
doubtedly generic — mankind — (they were all included in the 
Adam), upright, which included free agency and responsibility for 
their actions ; and they — the Adam — have sought out many inven- 
tions, or devices. When f Why, of course at the time of the 
fall, ivhen all sinned, as Paul asserts. We have here the same re- 
markable interchange of the singular and plural forms as in Rom. 
v. 12. And the sense is, they all, at the time referred to, departed 
from the state of uprightness in which God had created them. 
Paul says they sinned, and Solomon, that they sought out many 
devices, that is, evil, sinful devices, for the term is in antithesis to 
34 



530 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

upright. As Dn«n, therefore, they were all created upright ; and 
as oixn they all departed (in the fall) from that uprightness : an 
idea wholly at variance and irreconcilable with the notion that, the 
first individual of the race having sinned, his sin was, by a legal fic- 
tion, charged upon his innocent posterity, and punished as their own. 

Such is the co-existing unity and distinction of individuality in 
this case, and thus does it shadow forth the unity and distinction 
of personality co-existing in the Godhead, in whose image man 
was created. The ground, therefore, for a reasonable denial that 
the Divine image, in which man was created, includes as the great 
point of resemblance that of co-existing plurality and unity, seems 
quite too narrow for occupancy, since the voice of the Scriptures, 
and of the whole Church, is that man was created in the image, 
after the likeness of the Triune God. Nor is, we repeat it, the 
incomprehensibility of the fact any ground for rational exception 
against it, nor against any truth taught with equal plainness, both 
directly and by implication, in the Scriptures. " The highest at- 
tainment of reason," says Pascal, " is to know that there is an in- 
finity of knowledge beyond its limits. It must be sadly weak if 
it has not discovered this." "Nothing is more consistent with 
reason than the disavowal of it in matters of faith, and nothing 
more contrary to reason than the denial of it in matters which are 
not of faith. To exclude reason, or to take no other guide, are 
equally dangerous extremes." (Thoughts, Part II., Chapter 6.) 
And the Church, if she would regain her lost power over the souls 
of men, must return to this simple doctrine of faith in all that 
God has taught. 

Finally: Mankind, as SchafT remarks, is not a sandheap, but an 
organic unity. (See in Lange omRomans v. 12-19.) There is a 
unity and there is a distinction, dependent not simply on a succes- 
sion of manifested existences, but as originally created. It per- 
tained to Q>sn — in seipso — as originally formed, and of course to 
the racial existence. And there is certainly an innate, though un- 
defined, consciousness of it in our moral nature (and recognized 
by conscience itself), — a consciousness deeper than any merely 
logical inference or intellectual conviction; and which finds re- 
peated expression, not only in the Scriptures, but more or less in 
all literature ; as, for example, in the line of Terence, — 

"Homo Sum ; humani nihil a me alienum puto," (Heaut. I., l,-25.) 



SUMMARY AND RESULT." 



531 



and which was likewise recognized by the Roman people in the 
vehement applause with which that utterance was greeted. 
Marcus Antoninus repeatedly adverts to and recognizes the ex- 
istence of this consciousness, as, e. g., in lib. II., § 1 ; lib. IV., §§ 
1, 14; and in many other places. Berkeley, too, in his Minute 
Philosopher, pp. 43, 44. And Pascal thus adverts to the same : 
"Without this divine communication (that human nature is de- 
praved and fallen from God), what could men do hut feed: their 
pride on the inward impression of their former greatness, or ab- 
jectly sink under the consciousness of their present infirmity ?" 
(Thoughts, p. 221.) And even Yoltaire, in his Philosophical 
Dictionary (Vol. I., p. IT, Article Atheism), who, when speaking 
of the Athenians applauding Aristophanes and putting Socrates 
to death, has the following remark : " Such a people, and whose 
bad government could countenance such scandalous licentiousness, 
well deserved what has happened to them — to he brought under 
subjection to the Romans, and to be at present slaves to the 
Turks." Plutarch, too, adverts to the fact of the existence of 
this universal consciousness of the oneness of humanity ; and in 
his life of Lycurgus, says that when that lawgiver's institutions 
were completed, he brought the Spartans to promise (as he was 
about commencing his journey to Delphi) to keep them inviolate 
till his return. They cheerfully acquiesced, and he departed, but 
never returned. But in consequence of the promise, Sparta recog- 
nized on her part a moral obligation to keep this promise, and 
during the period of five hundred years kept it sacred and in- 
violate'. Personally or individually, those who survived the first 
generation (or those who personally covenanted with Lycurgus) 
had not promised, and had had no hand in accepting the covenant- 
obligation, and yet there was that in their moral nature which 
forbade the violation of the obligation, and led them to respect it 
during the long period referred to. 

They represent, moreover, the gods as recognizing this con- 
nection. As in Yirgil, (JEn. 1, 39-41) : 

" Unius ob noxam et furias Ajacis Oilei." 

And Horace, likewise, (in Epist. II., lib. 1, verse 14) : 
" Quidquid delirant reges plectuntur Achivi." 
The same considerations are, in innumerable places, brought to 



532 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

view in the word of God, and acknowledged as true and acted 
upon. Out of the many instances a single one will suffice. In 2 
Kings xvii. 7-15, where the children of Israel are reproached with 
their ingratitude to God : " The children of Israel had sinned 
against the Lord their God who had brought them out of the 
land of Egypt, from under the hand of Pharaoh" etc. Now, 
how could it be said that these children of Israel had been brought 
out of Egypt, when their personal existence did not commence till 
more than 700 years after that event ? And yet they are here 
reproached with i?igratitude for not remembering this their deliv- 
erance. We advert to these merely as specimens of the tens of 
thousands of like instances everywhere to be met with. We 
cannot expatiate upon them, nor is it necessary ; and in the same 
connection we may ask, Whence is to be traced that sense of sin, 
or alienation from God and holiness, which we realize so soon as 
we arrive at a consciousness of moral agency ? — a fact of profound 
interest in its application to this subject, and one the existence of 
which all serious and reflecting minds admit, and one which can 
neither be accounted for nor explained by any ab extra imputation, 
or charge of a foreign sin. 

This consciousness of a community of interest has, therefore, a 
basis in nature herself ; that is, it has a natural, and not, as with 
the angels, a merely ethical foundation, and seems to be in every 
way recognized by the race, as in government, jurisprudence, 
ethics, etc. It is likewise the basis of many of the most impres- 
sive teachings of the Bible; as, e. g., it is recognized by the whole 
of the second table of the decalogue, and by the parable of the 
good Samaritan — the priest and Levite violating, and the* Samari- 
tan recognizing this consciousness of a common humanity and of 
its claims. So that, besides the merely social and natural rela- 
tionships, there is a universal, which declares that we all are, in 
real interest, one — all being "of one blood" (Acts xvii. 26), and 
all being "neighbors" to one another. 

For a man to live solely for himself; that is, to consider him- 
self as one whose welfare and happiness are to be sought without 
regard to that of others, is, and ever has been, treated by the race 
as a crime against humanity; and hence the odiousness of the 
character of the miser, the supplanter, the caluminator, the envi- 
ous, etc. ; and that the duty of so regarding ourselves as parts of 



SUMMARY AND RESULTS. 



533 



the whole, as to recognize practically the obligation to promote 
the common welfare as we have opportunity, was obvious in our 
original ethical constitution, is clear from the fact that it becomes 
manifestly the characteristic of every truly regenerated soul ; for 
such are partakers of the spirit of Christ Jesus, in and through 
whose whole life on earth this was so gloriously conspicuous. 

It cannot be, even by Socinians and Arminians, denied that man 
is so far fallen from his original state as to be unable, except 
through the divine mercy, to secure eternal life or happiness, or 
even to avoid eternal death. All, together with our first parents, 
are brought into this condition by the first sin ; for we find that 
mutual dependence is so the great law of our nature, as created 
by God, that the virtue and the vice, joys and sorrows, happiness 
and misery of the race, are intertwined in one inextricable web, 
and in a way which has no analogy amongst the works of God, a 
consideration which should surely have its due weight in viewing 
the subject before us. There is a basis upon which this order of 
things rests — and what is it ? The co-existing unity and distinc- 
tion of personality in our common humanity does explain it ; that 
is, the fact that all sinned when Adam sinned, and so concurred 
with him in bringing this condition upon all. To ascribe it to 
God, either directly or indirectly, is blasphemous ; and this is done 
by making inherent corruption a positive penal infliction for a 
peccatum alienum. But the view before us, that the corruption of 
nature came upon Adam immediately on the fall, and comes on 
all his posterity as sinning hi him and falling with him, not pu- 
tatively, but really, charges God with no such implication; for, 
since the covenant was originally made with all, and was, in the 
fall, violated by all, justice and equity alike demand that all should 
be held and treated as guilty of that violation. 

I do not claim that all the preceding facts, and the like consid- 
erations, can find their solution only as a practical recognition of 
the doctrine above stated. But it cannot be doubted that they all 
do recognize an unity of actual interest which is in harmony with 
personal and individual interest in all that is noble and desirable, 
and that this universal consciousness must have an adequate basis. 
And further : that the basis we have suggested would fully explain 
or account for its existence in the universal consciousness, sadly as 
it has been blighted and broken by sin and selfishness. 



534 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 



Delitzsch has a striking passage, which I will cite here before 
concluding, though not to employ its argument, as he does, to 
prove the theory of traducianism ; 1 but simply as presenting an 
important psychological fact, as recognized by human conscious- 
ness, and which, in this aspect of it, has a direct bearing upon the 
point before us. He says : " There subsists between all men and 
the first created pair who became sinful, according to the teaching 
of Scripture, confirmed by substantial self-knowledge and the 
measure of experience, a close connection, in virtue of which every 
individual regards the beginning of the human race as his own he- 
ginning ; so that not only the sin of the race is his sin, but also 
the transgression of Adam is his transgression, and thus also his 
guilt. Thus it cannot be otherwise than that the spiritual-bodily 
origin of humanity is one which, by virtue of the creative founda- 
tion and the maintaining providential cooperation of God, contin- 
ues itself out of itself; and thus the spirit of the individual comes 
into existence by an immediate appointment of God on each occa- 
sion, just as little as does his body. It has been, indeed, remarked 
in the Roman Catholic interest, sophistically enough, that the 
transmission, by inheritance, of Adam's sin, can only be spoken of 
on the hypothesis of creationism, since the divinely created spirit 
which enters into the moral faculty derived from Adam receives 
at the same time with it the sin inherent in it. But the meaning 

1 I would here frankly state, in explanation of the silence observed on this 
subject throughout the present work, that my own mind is not fully settled 
on the question of traducianism and creationism. I find in both some of 
what are certainly the elements of divinely revealed truth, and feel assured, 
therefore, that our mode of stating the question fails to present the issue ac- 
tually involved, and that a deeper study of the divine word may yet develop 
the true principle on which those apparently conflicting elements of truth (as 
the subject is now viewed) will be found reconcilable — that is, if the subject 
intrinsically does lie within the range of our present ability of logical and 
metaphysical definition, or even conception. Creationism — that is, the theory 
as now insisted on — evidently owes its origin to the philosophy of Aristotle, 
who, when treating of and asserting the pre-existence of souls, says that 
"the soul is from without, and is truly divine." (rdv vouv fiovoy < QvpaOev 
iTzeiat&ai xai Oetov slvat p.6vov. Generate Animal., lib. II., cap. 3.) Pelagius 
and his followers resort to this philosophy in order to prove that sin cannot 
descend by natural generation. And some of our existing writers on theo- 
logy who have adopted it seem quite inclined to concur with them in this 
conclusion. 



SUMMAK* AND RESULTS. 



535 



and substance of inherited sin is rather this — that man, as soon as 
he attains to personal thought, and to self-knowledge, finds every- 
thing that he, the I, the person, has in himself — i. e., the entire 
circumference of his spiritual-bodily natural condition permeated 
with sin. It is not only the corporeity of man, but the totality of 
his whole nature absorbed in the eapZ, in and with which sin is 
transmitted, so that in the sinful disposition of the entire being of 
the individual' anticipates his actual self-conscious and self-deter- 
mining life; or, in other words, is prior to the commencement of 
his personal life. But if it be supposed that the spirit of the indi- 
vidual is at every time created by God, there follows therefrom 
the consequences, contrary to Scripture and experience, that the 
human spirit stands independently, without any actual relation to 
original sin; that it is God Himself who concludes the human 
spirit under the consequences of it ; that there is only a sinful de- 
termination of the bodily nature involved in the enclosing of the 
so-called natural-psyche, but not an inherited sin comprehending 
man's whole personality, and certainly not an inherited guilt ; that 
substantially every begetting is a new commencement of human 
history : for, since freedom belongs to the essence of the spirit, and 
God cannot imprint upon it the impotency of unfreedom without 
becoming Himself the originator of evil, it cannot continue to be 
an absolute necessity for it to subject itself slavishly to the sinful 
Gdf>'= of Adam ; and there could at least be no question of an inrpu- 
tability of inherited sinfulness, so long as the spirit had not in 
this position consenteJ, and the image of God in it had not been 
extinguished." (Pp. 134-136.) 

It were, indeed, not difficult by admitted analogies to illustrate 
and enforce the doctrine we have hereon advanced, but in treat- 
ing the question we have thought best to avoid all mere meta- 
physical speculation. It were easy, for example, to have shown 
that during the past centuries many of the Church divines have 
taught that the Father is the -r^uJ.a. dio-r^o?, or Fons Deitatis, 
from whom the Son, by generation, and the Spirit, by procession, 
have received, not their essence, of course, but the personality; 
as, for instance, Turrettin says : " Ita Persona differre dicetur ab 
Essentia, non realiter, id est essentialiter, ut res et res, sed moda- 
liter, ut modus, a re." (Loc. III., Quaast. 27, § III.) And again, 
in § XVII. : "Sic Patri tribuitur ayewrjaia, Filio y^ vvr i ff ^ Spiritui 



536 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 

Sancto h-6p£u<>ls" They do not confound personality with es- 
sence, which is a numeric unity, though there are relations therein 
which distinguish the persons ; and though in the divine essence 
itself there was the existing distinction, yet the personality of the 
Son and Spirit were derived from the Father, as Turrettin, in 
the section last cited remarks : " Sic Filius dicitur esse a Patre per 
generationem, non ratione Essentia?, et absolute qua Dens, sed 
ratione Personce, et reduplicative qua Filius, Spiritus Sanctus est 
a Patre et Filio per spirationem, quia generatio et spiratio est 
communicativa Essentia ad terminum Personalitatis." But, as I 
can find in the word nothing to sustain any such speculations, I 
have avoided them, though, as the reader may see, they might 
have been plausibly alleged in support of the views I have pre- 
sented in regard to the divine image in man. I may add, how- 
ever, that it is common with the Church theologians, in replying 
to the objection, "that as the Sonship implies derivation and 
posteriority on the part of the Son, and priority on the part of 
the Father, therefore Christ is not eternal;" to say that sonship 
amongst men may be but a distant and obscure adumbration of 
the relation existing in the Godhead, which may be as much above 
it as the infinite mind is above the finite grovelling mind of men. 
And why, then, may not the oneness and plurality in humanity, 
brought to view in Eccles. vii. 29; Rom. v. 12, and in a multitude 
of other places, be in like manner a shadowing forth of the divine 
likeness in this regard ? Such a conception is not contrary to the 
Scriptures; and, as we have shown, it has ever been the concurrent 
utterance of the Church, that man was created in the image, ac- 
cording to the likeness of the Triune God. 

Such, in brief synopsis (for it were easy to extend the discus- 
sion through a volume), is the view and the reasons for entertain- 
ing it, which have occurred in contemplating this great and pro- 
found subject. Yet, though my mind rests satisfied that the view 
is in harmony with the word of God, and not in conflict with our 
Church theology, I do not forget that (so far as my knowledge 
extends) the question has not been previously presented or dis- 
cussed in any such form as it here assumes. But as I lay no 
claim to the attribute which a recent council has bestowed upon 
Pio Nono, I hope that none will charge me with claiming it. I 
have not allowed myself to be deterred from prosecuting the in- 



VIEWS OF PEINCIPAL CUNNINGHAM. 



53T 



quiry by any such considerations, nor from the applications which, 
in all such or similar cases, persons whom I care not to charac- 
terize, always stand ready to make of them for awakening pre- 
judice and unkindly feeling ; for my object is simply to propound 
the subject for consideration, under the assurance that should it 
be regarded as the teaching of the Scriptures, its reception, while 
it can effect no injury, cannot but be in an important degree- 
subsidiary to the true development and right appreciation of the 
teachings of inspiration respecting the great cardinal truth which 
it is the aim of the present work to illustrate and defend. 

Note C. 
Referred to above. 
Peincipal Cunningham and his Acceptance of De. Hodge's- 

Theory. 

We devote the following remarks on imputation and original 
sin to a consideration of the position occupied by the late Princi- 
pal Cunningham (of Scotland) in relation thereto, and whose great 
and illuminated mind was led into serious error by assuming that 
Dr. Hodge's representations on the subject are reliable. In one 
of his essays he evinces his acceptance of these representations en 
masse, and takes for granted the undoubted accuracy of all that 
Dr. Hodge has claimed on this subject, and thus he has been led 
sadly astray. 1 As his works are deservedly popular, and have been 
republished and extensively circulated, it would hardly be proper 
in a treatise like the present to omit a specific reference to the 
facts in the case. 

We commence our remarks with a reference to page 179 (of his 
Reformers and the Theology of the Reformatio}!), where, in de- 

1 Principal Cunningham attempts no proof of the accuracy of his statements 
touching this matter, but merely accepts them on the authority of Dr. Hodge. 
For example, in a note on page 394, he says, "There is a great deal of im- 
portant matter, both argumentative and historical, on various departments of 
this controversy in a very valuable series of articles on original sin and the 
doctrine of imputation contained in the first series of the Princeton Essays. '* 
On page 380, likewise, he indorses Dr. Hodge's egregious perversion of the 
work of Kivetus (referred to above), and which he represents as having been 
written in defence of gratuitous imputation — a doctrine which Rivetus never 
entertained, but always opposed as an egregious heresy. (See also Danville 
Review, Vol. II., pp. 517-541.) 



538 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 



fending the expression of Calvin (horribile decretum fateor), 
Principal Cunningham says, " He is treating only of the implica- 
tion of the human race in the penal consequences of Adam's first 
sin" etc., employing this strange phrase as equivalent to the ex- 
pression, "Adam's merely personal sin" and so representing Cal- 
vin as a teacher of gratuitous imputation, though in the very con- 
text and in the two subsequent sections such language as the fol- 
lowing occurs, showing in what sense his statement is to be under- 
stood when he says, " Iterum quaaro, unde factum est, ut tot 
gentes, una cum liberis eorum infantibus seternse morti involveret 
lapsus Adas absque remedio, nisi quia Deo ita visum est ? Hie 
obmutescere oportet tarn dicaces alioqui linguas. Decretum qui- 
dem horribile, fateor/' etc. (lib. III., cap. 23, § 7, p. 151) ; for he 
says, " Sic enim prsedestinatio nihil aliud est quam divinae justitiaa, 
occulta quidem, sed inculpatse, dispensatio ; quia non indignos 
f uisse certum est, qui in earn sortem prsedestinatione subeunt, seque 
certum est. Ad hoc, sic ex Dei prcedestinatione pendet eorum per- 
ditio, ut causa et materia in ipsis reperiatur." (Page 152, § 8.) 
And a few lines further : "Cadit igitur homo, Dei providentia sic 
ordinante ; sed suo vitio cadit" (§ 8.) And then a few lines still 
further on : " Quare in corrupta potius humani generis natura 
evidentem damnationis causam, quce nobis propinquior est, contem- 
plemur, quam absconditam ac penitus incomprehensibilem inquira- 
mus in Dei prcedestinatione." (See also § 9.) Principal Cun- 
ningham should, therefore, have said that Calvin is " treating only 
of the implication of the race in the penal consequences of the first 
sin" for that sin was not less ours than Adam's. And the order 
of topics, as treated in § 9 of this work, evinces the utter fallacy 
of his representation, as it does of that of Dr. Hodge, as we have 
very fully evinced in that section. 

Principal Cunningham, on page 374, reiterates all the misstate- 
ments and unaccountable blunders of Dr. Hodge in delineating 
the doctrine, and in every instance confounding Adam's -personal 
sin with the first sin, in which all sinned (see our § 14, above) ; 
and in like manner represents the covenant as made with Adam 
alone, and for his seed, and thus the Church is represented as 
teaching that all the evils we suffer flow to us from the forensic 
imputation of Adam's personal sin. He appears wholly oblivious 
of the fact that the Church has ever taught on this point that the 



VIEWS OF PROFESSOR CUNNINGHAM. 



539 



iirst sin was our sin, as well as Adam's, by a nmtal participation ; 
and that in that sin we as truly violated the covenant as did our 
iirst parents themselves ; and that hence its imputation to us is 
fraught with all the fearful consequences which result therefrom ; 
and he is oblivious, too, of the fact that she never taught the doc- 
trine of the gratuitous imputation of sin, for he does not hesitate 
to style this gratuitous imputation scheme " the generally received 
doctrine of the direct and proper imputation of Adam's sin." 
(Page 375.) In fact, in this single paragraph he so designates 
it no less than six times. 

In the same paragraph, moreover, he confounds this notion of 
imputation (just as Dr. Hodge has done) with the Church doc- 
trine of "immediate and antecedent imputation," and so prepares 
the way, as did Dr. Hodge, for all the immense confusion which 
follows. 

On page 376, he represents Beza emphatically as an example of 
those who taught it. He says : " Beza brought out this doctrine 
•of the imputation of Adam's sin to his posterity more fully and 
precisely than it- had been before. He expounded and developed 
it more fully than any preceding theologian — both as directly and 
in itself an element in the guilt or reatus of the condition into 
which the human race fell through Adam's transgression, and as 
the cause, ground, or explanation of the actual moral depravity 
attaching to all men as they come into the world," when, as we 
have fully shown, no man more distinctly than Beza alleges our 
own guilt in the first sin as the ground of its imputation to us ; 
and then, moreover, he constantly represents the guilt of the fall 
as propagated by nature, and the obedience of Christ as imputed 
through grace; as, e. g., on Bom. v. 12, " Sed reatus ille demum 
ex Adami transgressione in omnes homines projxigatos ; cui obedi- 
entia alterius Adami opponitur per gratiam credentibus imputata ;" 
and on verse 15 : "In versiculo vero 16, vim utriusque id est lapsus 
Adami prop >agati per naturam, et Christi obedientise per gratiam 
impuiatce, comparari." 1 Beza is, therefore, directly opposed to 
the doctrine attributed to him by Principal Cunningham. 

On pages 377, 378, speaking of Catharinus and Pighius, he 
says : " They denied the transmission of an actually corrupt or 
depraved moral nature from Adam to his descendants." But in § 30 

1 Beza, in Nov. Test, (edition by Henry Stephens, 1589.) 



540 ORIGINAL SIN AND GRATUITOUS IMPUTATION. APPENDIX. 



we have sufficiently remarked on this, as asserted by Dr. Hodge.. 
Those papal divines held simply the doctrine of a gratuitous im- 
putation of Adam's peccatum alienurn, and held, just as Dr. Hodge 
does, that sin was transmitted neque per corpus, neque per animam r 
sed per culpa m ; that is, that it was propagated or transmitted, 
not by generation, but by guilt, which being imputed, brought 
upon them the ruins of the fall. 

It is painful to witness how Principal Cunningham's implicit 
reliance on Dr. Hodge's unauthorized statements has led him ut- 
terly astray in this whole matter. 

Further, on page 381, he justifies the notion, just as Dr. Hodge 
has done, that God can constitute a personal and private, or foreign 
sin, a common and general sin. And so justifies, just as Dr. Hodge 
has done, the error of Crellius, Slichtingius, and the Remonstrants, 
and of Dr. Taylor of Norwich, (that the first sin is become com- 
mon by being imputed, and was not common, and therefore im- 
puted, and) that God can constitute a personal and private sin a 
common and general sin, which is, as regards Augustinian theology, 
a grievous error, as we have shown in the* preceding work. (See 
also Turrettin, loc. 9, Qusest. 9, §§ 27-35.) And he speaks also 
in the same connection of the " moral depravity which came upon 
men (at the fall) as a consequence in the w T ay of penal infliction 
through the withdrawal of divine grace," — and this, though they 
begin existence as sinners, and this depravity exists before moral 
agency commences. And he repeats that this is held generally by 
Calvinistic divines. 

On page 382, he charges Placaeus with maintaining that God r 
in mere sovereignty, established a constitution for the trial of the 
race in Adam. His' words are: "It is also very manifest that this 
doctrine [of Placaaus] does not give, or attempt or profess to give, 
any account of the origin, or any explanation of the cause, of the 
moral depravity of man, and the universality of actual transgres- 
sion proceeding from it. Nay, it precludes any attempt to ex- 
plain it, however partially, except this, that God, in mere sover- 
eignty, established a constitution, in virtue of which it vjas pro- 
vided, and did actually result, that all men should have trans- 
mitted to them the same depraved moral nature which Adam 
brought upon himself by his first sin. And there certainly can 
be nothing which more directly and immediately than this resolves. 



VIEWS OF PRINCIPAL CUNNINGHAM. 



541 



at once the sin and misery of the human race into the purpose and 
the agency of God." But we ask again : Is not this very scheme, 
as thus denned, the doctrine of gratuitous imputation? Beyond 
all question it is ! and in no way can it be shown that the theory 
of Dr. Hodge differs therefrom. 

On page 384, he copies and indorses all the misrepresentations 
which Dr. Hodge has so undiscriminately made respecting the 
views and position occupied by President Edwards, though a very 
slight investigation would have evinced their utter inaccuracy, as 
we have shown in the body of our work. 

On pages 371-394 of his work, he himself makes the whole cove- 
nant transaction in Eden a resolution on the part of God to con- 
stitute the trial of Adam personally the trial of the race. To this 
passage, which is too long to be here appended in full, the reader 
is referred. 



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